


Trochal

by ImpOfPerversity



Series: Picaresque-verse [2]
Category: Baroque Cycle - Neal Stephenson, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-01
Updated: 2004-10-21
Packaged: 2019-10-02 22:29:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 58,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17272352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpOfPerversity/pseuds/ImpOfPerversity
Summary: Originally posted at LiveJournal in 2004 byTessabethand ported to AO3 fifteen years later by Gloria.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at LiveJournal in 2004 by **Tessabeth** and ported to AO3 fifteen years later by Gloria.

And _Picaresque_ continues... nineteen years later (and, mysteriously, in another tense)...

The longhouse is too close to the jungle to ever be a quiet place; even in the deepest depths of the quietest quiet of the night, there is rustling, and chirruping, and low growling, and occasionally the sudden rush of some creature through the undergrowth, frequently followed by an exceptionally loud but thankfully brief scream. Jack’s accustomed to all that and it doesn’t usually disturb his rest.

But the noise which comes wailing and shrieking into his head tonight makes him sit up, and shout before his eyes are even open.

“What the _fuck_?” shouts Jack, and rolls off his bed, grabbing his Janissary sword from underneath it, and running to the door of the longhouse; from whence he can dimly make out Mr Foot, staggering across the clearing in a nightshirt, waving his arms in placation. It’s definitely human, this noise, and it’s excessively loud, and it seems to be heading this way, from the direction of the village. Mr Foot is shouting, barely audible over the din, and waving his arms at Jack in patterns that seem to imply that Jack should in fact return to his bed. He steps back into the blackness of the doorway, but doesn’t loosen his grip on his sword.

Mr Foot makes it to the longhouse slightly before the horde of natives comes tearing across the clearing, nothing more than a warm noisy rush of shapes in the darkness. Every man and woman ‘mongst them is shrieking fit to wake the dead. They don’t notice Jack or Mr Foot at all; they rush on past, and the howling fades slowly.

“I do wish you wouldn’t wander round like that, Jack, you know it upsets them,” says Mr Foot fractiously.

“Like what?” says Jack, who feels that he has slightly more right to feel a little upset right now than the gang of shrieking Queena-Kootahn banshees that just interrupted his sleep.

“Naked,” says Mr Foot. “And waving that sword. It bothers them to see you so armed. And it also bothers them to see you so _un_ armed, as it were.”

“My deepest apologies,” says Jack, “I should hate my dreadful disfigurement to give any innocent savage an unpleasant sympathetic twinge.” It occurs to him that Mr Foot has been taking his duties as Sultan a mite too seriously of late.

“Well, alright then, and I’ll let you get back to sleep,” harrumphs Mr Foot, mollified.

“Could I be so bold as to ask, as I believe I did a while ago, and thus possibly attracted your attention: what the fuck?”

“Were you not here, last time they did this?” asks Mr Foot, and thinks back, and concludes, “Oh, no, you were in Batavia; they are chasing away a _hantu_ ; a ghost.”

“A ghost.”

“Yes… superstition, Jack, it’s endemic in these parts. If someone thinks they’ve seen a ghost, it’s up to the whole village to frighten it away.”

Ghosts have no particular role to play in Jack’s belief system, such as it is. He’s very little time for superstition at all, except insofar as it’s occasionally a useful tool for bending sailors to his will whilst avoiding confrontation. But as the shrieks and cries fade into the jungle, and the soft sounds of insects and night-birds return, he feels a tickle of sweat down his spine, and shivers. Ghosts.

“Well, d’you think they’re quite done, for now?” he asks, and the Sultan nods.

“Oh, yes, it’s seldom more than once round the village, that seems to do the trick.”

“In that case,” says Jack, “my terrifying corpus and I shall return to our bed.”

“Goodnight, then, Jack.”

Jack stows the Janissary sword in its hiding place, and climbs back onto his bed, which is little more than an elevated platform (to deter snakes) covered in a number of blankets, with a single thin sheet under which he huddles (to deter mosquitoes). But while the _Minerva_ is away, this is his home. He prefers his cot on the ship, which, as a Shareholder, isn’t a bad berth; but he’d been laid low with fever when she set out on her latest trading voyage, and van Hoek wouldn’t have him aboard. So he’s waiting, and helping Mr Foot and Enoch establish the rule of the new White Sultan; not to mention the establishment of the new Bomb and Grapnel, which is developing a reasonable reputation amongst the European traders in these parts, and for which Jack is developing a considerable fondness.

Ghosts. Really. Pack of fucking savages. If there were such a thing, Jack’s reasonably sure he would’ve seen one by now, because there’ve been a fair few who would probably have liked to haunt him, as a method of revenge if nothing else. Jack’s mind wanders as he waits for sleep to return. Who would he bother haunting, if he could?

Foolish question. Who else? He dreams, vaguely, of what she might be doing; and wonders whether she’s forgiven him, and whether his bloody peace offering sufficed. Oh, yes, there’s a man, or rather an ex-man, who’d haunt Jack Shaftoe if he could. Oh, yes.

Jack’s faintly discomfited by this idea. A vengeful ghost. A Janissary sword’s not much use against a vengeful ghost. He’d need another ghost, one who was on his side, to defend him. Such as…?

Jack knows the answer to this question too.

*

He rises late, opening bleary eyes to the sound of children’s voices, whispering and giggling at his door, and a heavy, dirty humidity that clings to his skin and has sucked precocious quantities of sweat from him, soaking his blankets. The rains will come soon. Till then, the air is weighty and thick, pungent with the sweet decay of the jungle.

He sits up on the side of his bed, rubbing his face, and the children squeal and scatter into the sunlight beyond the verandah, except for one, the tenacious little boy who follows Jack around like a determined would-be adoptee. He stands in the doorway, grinning, scuffing one dirty foot on the top of the other.

“ _Selamat pagi_ , MissaJack,” says the naked infant. Jack thinks the child is about seven years old, but he’s not much of a judge.

“ _Selamat pagi_ , Datuk,” says Jack agreeably.

“Shee-pah,” says Datuk, eyes wide, pointing out t’wards the bay.

Jack shakes his head. “No mate, no ship. Not yet.” But Datuk nods, and seems determined. “ _Besar_ shee-pah, MissaJack,” he insists.

Perhaps they have visitors? Or perhaps something has happened to _Minerva_ , and she’s returned sooner than expected? Jack reaches for the _sarung_ at the end of his bed, wrapping it round his hips so’s not to frighten the boy unduly – despite what Mr Foot seems to think, Jack considers the power of his Credential to be a considerable one, and doesn’t use it lightly or to no purpose - and staggers out into the sunlight. He gazes across the scrubby expanse of grass, and across the beach, and across the bright waters of the bay, and there is indeed a ship, Datuk’s right; but it certainly isn’t the distinctive curve and weight of _Minerva_. It’s another shape altogether. An older shape. It reminds Jack, with a pang, of another ship, in what feels like another life.

Ghosts. No such thing.

*

Down at the Bomb and Grapnel, Mr Foot is taking inventory. It’s an interesting combination of professions, Sultan and Publican, but it has advantages. It means that, as Sultans go, Mr Foot is a very popular one, and singularly knowledgeable as to the habits of his constituents. Outside, on the dusty waterfront path, the remnants of last night’s clientele still lie, some not yet awake; a mixture of natives (who require very little drink to be reduced to this state, being unaccustomed to its glorious tribulations) and visiting European sailors (who require a good deal, thus ensuring a positive GDP for Mr Foot’s island state).

The new Bomb was initially, in the optimistic imaginations of its designers, based upon the old; this theory was adapted during construction, as the limitations of materiél, labour, and engineering capability made themselves felt. The final product is an interesting amalgam of Malay longhouse, and French hovel; but it does have a particularly authentic sign hanging out front, which Jack painted himself. And there are few places that Jack would prefer to be of a tropical evening, than out on its long sheltered verandah, with a mug of Mr Foot’s – well, it doesn’t really have a name, as it’s cobbled together from whatever that good gentleman can find and ferment, but some weeks it’s positively palatable, and all weeks it’s effectual, so Jack can’t complain – and that fine view out over the bay. The Enterprise is all very well, and Serious and Vital, but some days Jack thinks he wouldn’t mind stopping here for a little longer than they’ve planned.

Jack sticks his head in the door, and volunteers in a half-hearted way to help; Mr Foot says peevishly that there is remarkably little that a complete illiterate can offer in the way of help where stock-taking is concerned. Jack very briefly considers an attempt to disprove that, but comes to his senses and instead helps himself to a papaya from a tree at the side of the building, settling himself at a table on the verandah, watching the gentle bustle of the fishermen around the wharf and children on the beach. There is no sign of activity on the new ship, as yet. She has her stern pointed to the shore, on the incoming tide; but is too far away for Jack to make out her name. She bothers him, though. She is so cruelly familiar.

The morning breeze comes softly from the sea, moving the hot and heavy air and its exotic smells of fruit and flowers, and Jack half closes his eyes, hefting the papaya in his hands, thinking of other breezes, other places, at a longitude that is far from this one, but a latitude that isn’t so far at all; and a ship that looked a little like this ship, only… blacker. It was a long time ago. But it marked him, and has stayed with him, in ways that he has never spoken of to anyone since. Not to Bob; not to Eliza. Certainly not to the other members of the Cabal.

The little boy sits at the foot of the wide stair at the edge of the verandah.

“Datuk?” says Jack, and the child looks up. “Get me a knife, eh? Knife? For cutting?” And he pantomimes his intention, and waves a thumb t’ward the dark interior of the Bomb. The little boy grins, and nods, and disappears; in moments Jack can hear the raised voice of Mr Foot, and running footsteps, and Datuk reappears, triumphant. Jack takes the knife and quarters and seeds the papaya, offering the boy a dripping section. The child takes it and bows his head and grins and goes back to the step, watching Jack with serious eyes.

Some days, Jack rather enjoys being the local freak. Others, it’s less diverting. In these parts, blonde hair suffices to mark one out as an object of curiosity; add to that blue eyes, and a body covered in scars, and the rumours of the Credential, and he’s truly a thing apart. He closes his eyes against the child’s gaze, and thinks about ghosts.

It is odd that this ship should turn up on this morning, when his head’s full of spectres and memories. Vivid memories, that Jack’s cherished and nurtured in deep secret places for more years than he cares to calculate. Memories that even now, even after all this time, generate a warmth in his blood; which is, sadly and invariably, followed by a heaviness in his heart. He sighs, and takes a big bite of papaya; sugary juice spills down his chin, and drips onto his chest, runs down until it hits the line of scar tissue, then follows that line diagonally across.

“Jack,” says a deep voice behind him, in greeting.

“Morning, Enoch,” says Jack, without opening his eyes. He hears Enoch Root’s bare footsteps on the boards, and Enoch starts to say something about the heat, and then there’s sudden silence; and when Jack looks up, Enoch’s staring out at the new ship as if… Jack grins to himself, yes, as if it’s a ghost.

“What?” he says. “She look familiar to you too, Enoch? I must say she reminded me of something a while back.”

“I think,” says Enoch rather tightly, “I may take a little trip out to the bay. Excuse me, Jack.”

“What are you all knotted up about?” says Jack, but Enoch’s already striding down to the wharf. Jack gets up and jogs after him. Datuk gets up and jogs after Jack.

“Shall I come too, eh?” Jack calls after the alchemist’s retreating back. “If you don’t mind pausing for a moment, I can gather some weaponry.”

“Stay there and eat your breakfast,” says Enoch, and strides on. He is clearly not in the mood to turn this little expedition into an adventure, Jack Shaftoe style. Jack finds this marginally disappointing, but not too much so; the day’s too young for him to be bored just yet.

“Fair enough, I’m here if you need me,” says Jack, and returns to his spot, which he envisages occupying for much of the day. From this prime position, he watches Enoch drag a narrow native dugout down to the water, and push off and begin paddling out to the stranger ship. This takes a while; and by the time Enoch is within hailing distance, Jack, lulled by the triplet ministrations of heat, papaya and a severely interrupted night, has fallen asleep.

*

Enoch is suffered to come aboard, but the first words angled in his direction don’t bode well for his standing on this ship.

“So it’s you again. I suppose you’ll be wanting Jack?”

“Delightful to see you also, Mr Gibbs. And yes, I will be wanting an audience with your Captain, if convenient.”

“Convenient, eh!” comes a cry from above, and Enoch squints upward, to be greeted by the grinning face of Jack Sparrow, dangling simian from the ratlines. “That’s a new one, Mr Root. You tend to claim far more enticing benefits than mere convenience. Why, last time we saw you…” As he speaks, Jack’s scrambling and swinging his way down to the deck. “…last time, I b’lieve you talked of wealth beyond the dreams of men. And the time before that, everlasting happiness. And the time before _that_ , immortality, and I think we all recall how that one worked out. So perhaps I should be grateful that today you’re selling nothing more than mere convenience. If that is all, of course.”

“I’m selling nothing, as ever, Captain Sparrow,” says Enoch smoothly. “I merely pass on information that might be useful to you.”

“Well, make it quick,” says Jack. “I’ve a hankering to go ashore.”

Enoch sighs. “Not a wise plan, I’m afraid, Jack.”

“Perfect, then, eh?” says Jack, and Gibbs laughs.

“There’s a lot of unrest,” says Enoch, less than impressed with himself for coming up with such a flaccid reason. “There’s nothing for you here, and a political situation that wouldn’t benefit from your presence, so on the basis of our long and fruitful acquaintance, I’m asking you, as a favour, to move on.”

“Is this a, shall we say, _profitable_ type of a favour?” asks Jack, with a faint glint in his eye.

“No,” says Enoch honestly. “But a sincerely requested one.” He recalls Jack Sparrow’s (deeply hidden) wellspring of honour and decides to trust in it.

Enoch hasn’t seen Jack Sparrow in a while.

“So that’s it? You just want me to… go away?”

“Yes.”

“How far away?”

“I’d rather you weren’t in the East Indies at all, Jack.”

“Oh.” Jack looks faintly hurt but Enoch is familiar with his game playing and pays it no mind. He waits. The pirate is silent.

“So?” says Enoch, running out of patience.

“I’ll think about it,” says Jack. “You can go now.” And he climbs aloft once more. Enoch is fairly confident that this is the end of the conversation. He takes up Jack’s suggestion.

Once the dugout is halfway back to shore, Jack descends. Gibbs is waiting below, along with a young woman, clad in grubby men’s trowsers.

“That was interesting, eh?” says Jack.

“I don’ trust that man any further than I could spit ‘im,” says the young woman vehemently.

Jack arches an eyebrow at her. “He ain’t all bad, AnaMaria, he’s given us some fascinating information from time to time. What d’you think, Mr Gibbs?”

Mr Gibbs snorts his disapproval. “I can’t see that man without a little voice mutterin’ to me, _here comes a wild goose chase_ ; I’m with Ana, Jack.”

Jack grins, and sunlight strikes gold. “Unanimity, it’s a beautiful thing, my friends. ‘Sides which, I say you should always trust the little voices. Let’s get that boat lowered.”

*

Down in the great cabin, Jack readies himself for a trip ashore. Given the size of his destination (miniscule) and its apparent condition (rat-hole) it shouldn’t warrant great preparation, but if there’s even a word of truth in what Enoch Root claims, it won’t hurt to look more impressive than not. Restless natives, in Jack’s experience, are far more likely to be cowed by a man of style than by a ragamuffin. Not that Jack’s been a ragamuffin for many years, except during brief periods in which circumstances were indubitably beyond his control.

So it’s a clean shirt; a frockcoat despite the heat, and most definitely his tricorne; armaments up to the eyeballs; and liberal reapplication of eyeblack. Jack squints at himself in the yellowed silver of his small, cracked mirror (it’s a dreadful paradox – he’s too vain to confess to being vain enough to have a mirror, so this little piece of soft-edged glass, hidden away in his sea-chest, must suffice) and decides that he’s definitely up to the job of impressing the odd indigene.

There’s a knock on his door, and he hurriedly stuffs the mirror back into his chest. “Come,” he says, in the tone of a man who’s not been doing anything at all, really.

The door opens and a tall, rangy youth stands there. He grins at Jack, a wide smile that lights up a handsome face. “You’re pretty enough,” he says, with laughter in his voice, “and we’re waiting, Jack; are you coming?”

Jack grins. He doesn’t mind being caught out by this one. “’M on my way, Mr Turner, and less of the impatience, if you please.”

*

The closer they get to the primary port of the Sultanate of Queena-Kootah, the less prepossessing it appears. There are no more than a dozen buildings, the largest of which appears to be a pub; so it is, at least (Jack reflects) marginally civilised. There are more chickens roaming the dirty strand than there are people.

The pinnace skims fast over the calm waters of the bay, irresistibly propelled by the nicely muscled William Turner. Jack admires him with half an eye, as he looks past him to the approaching shore. He’s come a long way, that boy.

“Will you look at it!” says AnaMaria, screwing up her nose at the approaching shoreline.

“It ain’t much,” Jack agrees. “But on the other hand, Enoch Root doesn’t want us there, so that’s got to be a good sign.”

Will Turner smiles a wry smile and shakes his head, as if to say, _incorrigible_.

The water becomes paler, fantastically clear, and bright silvery fish flicker through the shallows. The pinnace grinds up against sand, and Turner stows the oars and jumps out, pulling the boat further up and offering a hand to AnaMaria (which is rejected with an evil glare) and then to Jack (which is accepted with grace and a grin). Jack stands on the beach, hands on hips, surveying, as a multitude of naked children form a wobbly, giggling circle around these strange apparitions.

“I suggest we begin at the… the “Bomb and Grapnel”, eh, gentlemen?” says Jack, and leads his rag-tag band up to the front steps of that fine establishment.

In the shade of the wide verandah sits a small boy, apparently standing guard over a sleeping figure.

Jack’s heart stops beating.

“Mr Gibbs,” he says, very quietly, “please go on in, and leave me here for a while.”

“Jack?”

A Look quells Mr Gibbs. Turner is less easily quashed. “What’s the matter, Jack?”

Jack scowls and brings a finger to his lips. “Quiet,” he whispers. “Go.”

Will’s lips press thinly together, but he does as he’s bid, and there Jack is, alone on the verandah with a little boy and a sleeping man.

The man’s head is pillowed on one arm, upon the table. Black lashes lie long over very tanned cheeks, white lines marking crow’s feet on relaxed skin; thick, dirty blonde hair is pulled back into a messy queue, and falls over a back that makes Jack wince to imagine what could have left such scars; until he sees the scar on the man’s left upper arm, and winces doubly. He’s probably been here in Queena-Kootah a while; he wears nothing but a long wrap of fraying cotton, patterned with brown and black and white birds and vines in the local fashion. His mouth is slightly parted in sleep, very red in the pale frame of beard. He has changed, certainly. But not so much, never so much, that Jack would not know him.

Jack does not speak, but his lips form the words, trying them out again, seeing whether they fit into the bright waking world: _Jack Shaftoe_. They do not fit here. They are words that belong to the dark and lonely places of Jack’s nights.

Jack’s heart has started beating again, but it’s not sure yet in what capacity it does so. The sight of this man is something that Jack has dreamed of for many years; and in some of the dreams, he holds him tight as if he will never let go, and in more of the dreams, he inflicts terrible pain upon him. These two conflicting urges are circling one another slowly, unsure yet as to who will be the victor.

*

Will Turner and Joshamee Gibbs peer though the cracked door, willing neither to disobey their Captain’s order, nor to remain ignorant.

“Who is it?” whispers Will, so quiet that Gibbs can barely hear it. The boy feels the shrug beside him. From this vantage point, he cannot see the sleeping man; but he can see Jack Sparrow’s face, shadowed by his hat, and he does not like what he sees flickering upon it. Does not like it at all.

*

“MissaJack!” comes the squealing cry, and Jack Shaftoe’s eyes fly open; in the split second before he would leap to his feet, his soldier’s brain registers the touch of steel at his throat, and so he quells the urge to jump and does not move, except to slowly lift a hand, to show he is unarmed. “Shh,” he says. “Easy, now.”

He feels the knife tremble against his skin as he speaks, and wonders what he’s done this time. As far as he’d been aware, there was no-one in the immediate vicinity that currently wanted him dead; but apparently someone does. Someone who is in front of him; who is not speaking. The hand holding the knife smells of tar and salt and… and, freakishly, something that sends familiar (and familiarly useless) heat to his groin. Jack looks down; the hand is very brown, and rather dirty, and wears several heavy rings; and is so painfully evocative that Jack wants to scream. His heart is pounding against his ribcage.

“I’m going to sit up, alright?” says Jack. And slowly, does so, the knife following his every move. Jack looks slowly up, starting at his seated eye-level; the figure standing beside the table wears several layers, probably (judges Jack) in a combined effort to present a more formidable silhouette and simultaneously to hide numerous weapons; it stands with graceful hips, and a froth of sash, and as Jack raises his eyes with slow care (don’t frighten him, now) it seems that with every inch this figure becomes more cruelly reminiscent of that which he lost; when the ends of long dark dreadlocks come into view he bites his lip; when his eyes reach a deep brown V of chest and sharp collarbones, he feels tears come to them; a strangely plaited beard brings him some relief, and he pauses, half afraid, half wanting to savour the lovely impossibility of the way this man reminds him of his lost desire.

_Stop it, Jack, that man’s been dead for nigh on twenty years, and this one’s threatening bodily harm, so do pay attention, eh?_

So Jack sets his jaw and looks up. And blinks, and cannot speak. There are ghosts, after all.


	2. impofperversity | Trochal, Chapter Two

  


_It's mucky, and ends suddenly, for which I'm sorry, but it was a hard bit. And I want to get onto the next bit, which might not be so hard. So here 'tis, for what it's worth..._

***

“Well, look at that,” says Jack Sparrow, and he’s glad to hear no tremor in his voice, and see no tremor neither in his hand that holds a blade to Jack Shaftoe’s throat. “That’s the look of a truly surprised man.” And it is; Shaftoe’s mouth is open, and once or twice opens slightly wider as if it had something to say, and then closes again; and his eyes are wide and silvery blue and is that with _tears_?

The sight of Jack Shaftoe’s face, after so many years, is making Jack dizzy and angry and hungry and sad beyond measure. Yes, he is older; his face is no longer plump and flushed with youth, and there are lines around his eyes that say he laughs a lot. And he’s scarred in ways that Jack longs to explore, because they’re serious scars and must have some astonishing stories attached to them. But oh, he’s grown into his wide shoulders, and though he’s thin as he always was it’s a strong wiry thinness, a thinness that showcases muscle and sinew and the raised tunnels of fat sturdy veins under the skin of his arms. He’s quite a man. Though apparently not as loquacious as he once was. And Jack reminds himself that he is not here to admire Jack Shaftoe, but to extract explication, and then probably revenge.

“Nothing to say for yourself, after all this time?” says Jack. “I thought you would have designed some delightful fable to cover this potential eventuality, mate. Some perfectly good reason for doing what you did.”

Shaftoe blinks, and a tear threatens to spill from the corner of one eye, making Jack’s heart turn over in his chest. “Jack?” Shaftoe says, in a hoarse croak.

“Oh, so you do remember me then.”

Shaftoe is terrified of waking up, or moving, or disturbing the strange currents of ether that have brought him this vivid and wonderful vision. It has to be a vision, doesn’t it? And a clever vision it is too; it’s his Jack Sparrow, alright, but Jack Sparrow grown, Jack Sparrow his equal, not the cocky stripling of his memories. This Jack Sparrow is more… _himself_ than ever before; there are faint lines on his face that recall all the lovely expressions that Jack can remember flitting over it as he spoke and smiled and laughed and scowled, and his skin is darkened even beyond what it was; there are more rings, more baubles, more marks on his hands. This is such an effective vision that Jack feels sure there would be more marks and changes beneath the clothes as well, and there is a shudder up his spine at the thought of that.

It must be a vision. But… Datuk is staring at the vision in horror, and didn’t Datuk’s voice rouse Jack when the vision pulled a knife on him? But if it’s not a vision…

Jack’s head is whirling. If it is not a vision then Jack Sparrow is alive. If Jack Sparrow is alive then he was never dead. If Jack Sparrow was never dead then…

_Then, oh, fuck, what did I do? What have I done?_

Jack slowly raises a hand. The knife presses closer against his throat, and black eyes bore into his with an angry warning. Jack reaches out, slowly, slowly, until his fingertips brush against the linen of the apparition’s shirt. He chokes back a noise. Presses his hand forward until it lies flat against Jack Sparrow’s torso, and he can feel the warmth of the body beneath the shirt coming through to his palm and his fingers, and he can feel the muscles of Jack Sparrow’s abdomen as he breathes.

Jack Sparrow is alive.

Or else – Jack has a sudden thought, and says, “Are we dead?” He thought he’d notice when he died, but perhaps if a man’s very fast asleep, it’ll all occur far more seamlessly than expected.

“What?” says Sparrow. “Has the sun turned you simple? Of course we’re not fucking dead. Though you should be, you – you – ” He fails to finish this sentence. You what? You lying, traitorous, whoring heart-breaker? It seems ridiculous to lay such epithets upon this stammering, wide-eyed, beautiful man.

Something about Sparrow insulting him makes this suddenly, inexplicably real. Jack Shaftoe feels a shouting, sparkling wonder coming over him. “You’re Jack Sparrow,” he says. “You’re alive!”

“As opposed to?”

Jack stands, careless of the knife, too happy to even think of its threat. There is no threat. This is JACK SPARROW. Sparrow lets the knife fall to his side. Jack steps to stand in front of him, close in front of him, and puts a hand up, wonderingly, to the side of Sparrow’s face. A face that he knows, has told himself a thousand times, was the loveliest he’d ever seen, but whose image, over too many years, has faded and warped in his memory, has been reduced to component parts – shining black eyes, high smiling cheekbones, a plump kiss of a mouth – that he can never piece together in a coherent whole; but here they are, and how beautiful they are still; although the expression upon them is not one he would have chosen.

“You think I left you,” says Jack, horror curdling sudden in his belly.

“Not at all, Jack. I _know_ you left me. Without a word. And may I congratulate you on your marvellous bartering skills; you played me, and played me well, and now I note that you’re doing it again; ah, see, I knew you would have come up with some interesting theory as to _why_ you suddenly had to disappear on that fat little sugar-ship. If I’m reading you correctly, the intended implication is that you thought I had expired.”

The bitterness in Sparrow’s voice is like a bilious venom. Jack wants to suck it out of him, as from a snake bite. It should not be there, not in this man. He grips Sparrow’s shoulder and the feel of thick black hair on the back of his hand sends shivers through him.

“They told me… Jesus, Jack, I thought… they told me you were dead. That Tom Skene had… that you were dead. And I was… I had to get out, Jack, I could not bear it. I thought…” Jack’s hands want to wander into that hair, over that face, to hold those dear hands and crush Jack Sparrow against him, he quivers with it. But Sparrow still stares at him, disbelieving and angry.

“Who, Jack, who told you such a thing, eh?”

“Barbossa –”

Sparrow’s jaw clenches and Jack sees the first fire of belief and anger, but then the scowl returns. “And one word from that envious lunatick and you took off? It’s a thin reason, Jack, a thin reason.”

“No, not just him! Bootstrap!” Jack cries. “Bootstrap told me! He was in tears, and I asked him was it true, and he told me so!”

Sparrow stares for a long silent moment, and incomprehension flickers over his face, followed suddenly by a great sadness, and he whispers, “Tobias. Tobias was dead, Jack. Bootstrap was telling you about Tobias.”

Jack feels sickness swirling through his delight. Sickness for his own stupidity and fear that had lead him to believe such a thing. Sickness for his callow, craven flight. Sickness for the vile duplicity of Barbossa. Sickness for what Jack Sparrow must have thought of him all these long years. Sickness for what was taken from him and what he has lived through instead. He feels tears pushing for release and does not want Jack Sparrow to see them. He throws his arms around the pirate instead, crushing him close, and burying his traitor face in warm dark hair, and breathing him in, breathing him in, the heated smell of the man that has not changed in all this time; and he hears the clatter of a knife falling to the boards, and then Sparrow’s arms are round him too, and one hand is on the back of Jack’s head, stroking his hair and pressing him close, and Sparrow is whispering, “The bastard, the bastard, but I killed him Jack, he’s dead and gone, and I revenged us though I didn’t even know it, and oh god if I had known he would have suffered more and long, it was too quick for him, he should have writhed and screamed under my blade for what he did, the bastard, the foul and filthy bastard…”

Jack’s hands press into Sparrow’s spine, wanting him closer, closer; a creamy sunrise in his soul is saying that today is the day that everything changes, today is a day of miracles and beauty. His tears are turning to tears of joy, and an irrepressible smile is forming, and he wants to kiss Jack Sparrow very badly but he also wants to hold him just like this forever and ever and haven’t they got forever now anyway? And can’t they –

And then the sun sets as fast as it had arisen, and Jack remembers who and what he is now. He pulls back, gently, from Sparrow’s embrace. Takes a deep breath.

“It’s good to see you,” he says. “I’m extremely glad you’re not dead.”

Sparrow’s gaze is quizzical; quick as ever, he has sensed the sudden change in Jack. “And I’m extremely glad that you’re not a lying, whoring fiend,” he says, and pulls Jack to him again; and again, Jack pulls gently away.

*

Jack Sparrow is mystified. Perhaps too much has happened this morning, too fast, for him to understand it; but no, that never happens to him. He can out-think any development. But he can’t quite understand what is happening with Jack Shaftoe right now.

They sit in the cool, gloomy interior of the Bomb and Grapnel, out of the heat of the afternoon sun, and Jack holds himself quiet and still around the churning mess of his viscera as he listens to the laughter and chatter of his companions. Watching. Thinking. _Not_ telling them all to fuck off and leave him alone with Jack Shaftoe so that he can make up for two decades of unnecessary emptiness. _Not_ leaping up and dragging Jack Shaftoe away and kissing him until he kisses Jack back, no matter how long that takes. Instead, working his way through a tankard of a disgustingly fruity, possibly poisonous, but undeniably effective concoction; Shaftoe, he has noted, is already well into his second. As for Gibbs – well, he won’t last the day, that much is certain. AnaMaria is being cosseted and charmed by the Sultan. Jack is impressed; she’s a hard woman to charm, that one. Politicians, eh. Enoch Root glowers in the corner, as the rest of the _Pearl_ ’s company, in dribs and drabs, meander into the Bomb, slowly filling it with noise. Will Turner, on one side of Jack, is listening wide eyed to Shaftoe, on the other side, who is regaling him with stories of his time in the Caribbean; though once again, Jack notes, certain elements of the tale have been quite thoroughly extirpated.

It’s quite a place to be sitting.

On the one side, a young man who’s been Jack’s protégé for more than a year now, having tried and failed to live the proper, land-locked life he intended. A ridiculously handsome young man, Jack has never been able to dispute that. And what’s more, a ridiculously handsome young man who finds Jack himself to also be ridiculously handsome (an understandable failing, for which Jack feels young Will must be forgiven). A failing which has led to certain… incidents… which are not helping the churning viscera situation in the slightest.

When Jack’d introduced Shaftoe to Turner, he’d watched very closely. On Turner’s face, he saw suspicion, and possibly a flicker of jealousy, which was all very nice, but potentially messy. On Shaftoe’s face – oh, that was amusing! First, the shock of recognition, the frown that came over him; “Bootstrap?” he muttered, and young Will smiled (always pleased to meet anyone as knew his pater), and stuck out a hand, and said, “Son of”; and Shaftoe shook it, but with no particular enthusiasm, and Jack knew that he was still reeling from the revelation that poor unwitting Bootstrap had cut out both their hearts all those years ago, and was not yet particularly eager to forgive and forget. But he also knew that Shaftoe _would_ forgive and forget, and was not a man to take out the sins of the father on the son.

“You used to sail with Jack?” said Will, friendly as a puppy.

“Aye,” said Shaftoe, shortly, and went behind the bar, and pulled up several bottles of some green-tinged brown liquid; “Who’s for a drink, then?”

“Jack, I haven’t counted those!” cried the publican irritably, coming to slap at Shaftoe’s hands, which Jack could see was a particularly inadvisable plan; Shaftoe bared his teeth in a manner that was definitely feral, and growled, “Four, Mr Foot, four, even an illiterate can tell you that.”

Gibbs and Turner exchanged glances.

“Capital plan,” said Jack, sunnily, and went to help Shaftoe with his burden, smiling his thanks to Mr Foot. He felt in need of it, himself, and wondered just how much more in need Jack Shaftoe was, having just seen a man return from the dead.

So now Shaftoe sits on his other side, and Jack lets the rough cadences of his long-unheard voice roll through him, barely listening. Shaftoe laughs at something, and shifts, and his hard kneecap pushes briefly against Jack’s thigh, and then jumps away. Just as Shaftoe jumped away from Jack’s embrace, outside.

This is what is mystifying Jack. Shaftoe was so undeniably happy to see him, to recognise him; the look in those bright blue eyes, the wonder of realisation, had drenched Jack like a warm tropical storm, and taken him right back to when Shaftoe would look at him just that way (and how, Jack now asks himself, how did he ever manage to convince himself that that look was a fraud?); and Jack had felt all his rage fall away, and be replaced by a hot happiness the like of which he could barely recall. And Shaftoe had thrown strong arms around him, and Jack had enfolded him back, one hand in the rough straw of Shaftoe’s hair, so much longer now, and the other splayed over hot skin, oh Jack Shaftoe’s skin, though it was welted and smooth both with scarring and not at all as it was before. Jack could feel Shaftoe’s breath on his neck, through his hair, and the smell of the man hit him and filled him, sweeter now somehow, hands smelling of tropical fruit when they had touched Jack’s face, but salty with sweat, and utterly compelling to every part of Jack; and he breathed deep so that he could smell Shaftoe more, and so that his chest pushed against Shaftoe’s chest, and the twitch and swell of his prick was instant and insistent as it always and ever had been when he was in this man’s arms. Behind closed eyelids, his mind had tumbled through pages of sweet memories and imaginings, Jack Shaftoe’s face all gilded shadow and light on bone as he entered Jack and his eyes went mazy blank with it, or as Jack took him in his mouth and felt the shudder deep in Shaftoe’s bones; and suddenly, incredibly, this book had grown hundreds of blank pages; pages which Jack could now, surely, fill with new images, new realities, and the wonder of it was a wriggling, crimson, living thing in his chest.

But then warm Jack Shaftoe had grown tense in his arms, and shuffled away; and surely, surely it wasn’t because he’d felt Jack’s arousal? Surely to God they were beyond all that nonsense?

Mystifying.

Jack’s brought back suddenly into the present by the touch of a hand on his arse.

Oh ho, Mr Shaftoe, he thinks for one happy moment, you’ve come to your senses.

But on closer inspection, those are definitely two hands that Jack Shaftoe has clamped round his tankard; and young Will is lounging back against the back of the settle, and one surreptitious hand has disappeared behind Jack’s back, and under the tails of his coat, and is sitting there, fingers spread wide and thumb stroking up and down, warm and friendly and undemanding and yet definitely trying to tell him something.

Drink often takes William this way. It has been the cause of a goodly proportion of the incidents between them. And since, at the time, Jack has invariably been under the influence himself, he has certainly not bothered to fight it. Why would he? When faced with the beautiful smiling visage and strong, perfect young body of William Turner? It’s an extremely pleasant way to pass the time. Extremely.

But Jack has never intimated to Will that it is any more than that. He thinks Will would like it to be; but Jack doesn’t do that, anymore. Jack rejected that possibility a long time ago. Nineteen years ago. So, he lets Will come to him; but he does not seek him out. This, perversely, makes William all the keener; all the more prone to jealousy. It’s an old trick, one that women have been using for millennia, and though Jack’s not trying to trick or entrap or entice, his motivations have no impact on the outcome of his actions; they are, sadly for Will, entirely efficacious.

So here Jack is. Sitting between a man who wants him, and the man he wants; between the man he can have, and the man he apparently can’t.

It would have been a lot simpler if Jack Shaftoe _had_ just left him, twenty years ago. Then Jack could have inflicted some rapid pain, and left, feeling better. Instead… he fears the pain will not be rapid, and that he will be its recipient rather than the giver. And he doesn’t feel better at all.

*

“So what do you think of Queena-Kootah?” says Jack Shaftoe, with the portion of his brain that he has currently assigned to deal with small talk. This portion of his brain pilots without intervention, and presents, he hopes, a relatively normal front to his companions.

The rest of his brain is not feeling normal at all, despite (no, certainly not because of) the application of copious quantities of medicinal alcohol. It does not feel better when it sees Will Turner’s arm slip behind Jack Sparrow’s back. It is full of black rage, and desperate desire, and more and blacker rage again. A day of miracles indeed; but Jack would need a greater miracle now to take advantage of it.

_Not so, my darling, not so!_ whispers the Imp, lovingly, stroking his arm with hot dry fingers, soft and adoring. _You know what Jack Sparrow wanted always to do to you, loveling, and so let him, and it will be oh everything that was in your dreams and more, an’ ain’t you waited long enough, my Jack? Take it now my sweetest heart and take it now!_

To the outside world, Jack is now giving a vague and inconclusive account of the aims of the Enterprise.

Meanwhile, he tries to explain to the Imp how utterly impossible this suggestion is. Oh, perhaps the Imp has forgotten, and loves Jack for what he is now, but beautiful Jack Sparrow thinks that Jack is far more than that; remembers Jack complete and whole. Jack has never been ashamed, as such, of his Condition; actually, for a while there he developed quite a habit of baring all to people almost by way of introduction. He enjoyed the theatricality of it, and the breathless shock, and the way men could not help themselves, but clutched a hand over their own equipment almost unknowing, and the astonishing power of a woman’s sympathy to get him his own way. But he’d shut off _that_ part of his life, it being easier to have none at all than to have a certain amount and then no more; and only Eliza had opened that door. And closed it again, making it clear without ever saying as much that it was her payment for all he did for her.

Jack doesn’t have a lot of pride, generally, but what he has is coming into play. He cannot bear to have Jack Sparrow feel sorry for him; he cannot, above all, bear the idea of Jack Sparrow finding him now deformed and ugly, and fucking him out of pity. No. NO.

Besides which, it seems that Sparrow has found himself a new diversion, and Jack has to admit that the new diversion is a very pretty one. Though he seems deathly serious, and Jack intends to loathe him on principle. He watches Turner’s hand disappear ‘neath Sparrow’s coat, and sees the muscles of Sparrow’s jaw clench. Jack Sparrow was not a haunted man, not like Jack. Jack Sparrow has moved on.

“And yourselves?” says Jack, knocking back the rest of his drink and refilling both his tankard and the top of the table. “What brings you this way?”

“The VOC, mate,” says Sparrow, seemingly roused from his relaxed state by Turner’s hand. “Too much lovely stuff to ignore. Been round here about, what, Will, five, six months now? And very profitable it’s been. But it’s getting a trifle warm now, we may head back soon.” He looks at Jack, searchingly, as he says this. Jack smiles at him, deliberately agreeable, and says nothing. There’s a small silence.

“So, are you provisioning, then?” says Jack. “We can help you out.” The old urge to run away is kicking in, but he can’t run right now, having no means; the next best thing must be to help Jack Sparrow run away on his behalf.

“Most appreciated, Jack, but I think we’ll be around for a few days. No hurry. Give the boys a chance to stretch their legs, and anything else that needs stretching before we head off.”

Why, thinks Jack, is leering so adorable when Jack Sparrow does it? His head is starting to thud. He needs fresh air. He stands up, suddenly, and says, “Come on, I’ll give you the tour of our glorious capital city.”

Sparrow leaps to his feet, leaving Turner’s cupped hand on the settle behind him, and the young man blushes and shoves it in his pocket. Sparrow drains his drink, and Jack watches the movement of his throat, the sharp Adam’s apple, the bobbing braids. So happy that this man is alive, so miserable about it in the same instant.

The cruellest miracle that Jack has ever known.


	3. impofperversity | Trochal, Chapter Three (JS/JS, NC17)

  


_Shhh, Jack-my-Jack, shhh and sleep now, lie still and shhh._

How can I lie still and sleep? thinks Jack. A truth that’s shaped my shiftless term on earth was incinerated today, and the firestarter’s lying out there in the bay in the ship that I once thought would be my life, or a bloody solid portion of it, and that damn sprat of a Turner is out there with him; and I’m lying here, and I, my dearest companion, am – as usual – entirely impotent.

_Misery, aren’t we?_

And why not?

_Oooh, boo-hoo, poor me, poor ickle Jack, and I’ve had such a terrible time being King of all the Vagabonds and King of my own land for some years too; and I’ve strapping grown sons, and friends by my side, and I’m on my way to making a monstrously monstrous fortune, but ooh, it don’t mean one tiny thinglet to me, so have you a hankerchee o thank you ain’t you kind, ‘cause all I want o poor me is Jack Sparrow. Wahhh!_

A man whom, you may have noticed, I can’t have. And leave off the sarcasm.

_Why? Why can’t you, eh? Why why why?_

Because Jack Sparrow has another. And I… don’t have one at all, as it were. I can’t be for Jack Sparrow what I want to be, and what I was, and what he thinks I still am. I cannot, and I’m surprised that I have to remind you of this, fuck Jack Sparrow.

_Pish and tosh my Jack and pish and tosh, and don’t smack at the wall that way and be such a scowling babe; he won’t mind it, no he won’t, not him, and could he not see your manhood in more places than just that? And ‘sides which oh my love think on it think on it, if ‘Liza could do as she could do, ooh what could Jack Sparrow do eh? An’ ain’t it what he always wanted to do eh? So he won’t mind it my love oh no._

**I** would mind it.

_Then don’t tell him ‘bout it darling, don’t tell him yet. But don’t you want to see him ‘gain, in all his glorious glory, and touch him, and smell him, and oh kiss his blackgold mouth, don’t you, and I know you do, I know it!_

Of course I fucking do, will you PLEASE shut up about it.

_No no no I won’t so. Take it Jack and go and take it, for I saw his face today and felt his hands and I know you’re in his heart so hard and fast and he wants you, oh yes he wants you too, did you not feel him swell against you as he held you and did you not hear the beating of his heart so loud?_

What about the boy? What about Turner?

_Pah! Psht! Pish! Stupid stupid Bootstrap that said it in the first place and set it off, and now his son thinks he can take my Jack’s desire and fire from him? O no no, that ain’t right. And did sweet Jack Sparrow look at baby Turner as he looked at you? O no no. And his arm was round whose shoulders as you walked him long the beach my love and whose?_

That doesn’t make it right.

_And is it your choice to make then? Or in the right and brightling world should it not be Jack Sparrow’s choice? But he can’t can’t can’t make it my darlin’ can he eh; for you’ve not telt him and shewed him that he has a choice. O darlin’ that ain’t fair and that ain’t right._

He’s a man who loves beauty. I’ve a number of qualities, but that can’t be considered one of ‘em any longer.

_He’s a man who loves beauty true and you have that; and he’s a pirate and a fighter and he ain’t scared of seein’ scars, you know he’ll have some of his own eh? And more than that my love, more than that, you are brave and strange and unexpected and that that that is what Jack Sparrow needs and wants and sees._

So, what? So…?

_Yessss my heart yesyes, you should licketty-split should go to him. Find out. Touch him ‘gain taste him ‘gain let him choose. Can’t lose it two times Jack and you would nevernever let it go if you knew he was there in the wide world and was not yours and it would eat you like a canker like a sore like the filthy pox and there would be a hole in your heart as deep as the ocean and that can’t be. Must go darlin’. Must and must. Come, up, go!_

Jack can fight it no longer, and he sees some sense in the Imp’s logic; the thought of knowing now that Jack Sparrow is alive, and losing him again through his own fear and inaction is a new thought, but rancid already, and he knows it will rot and reek beneath his nose forever if he lets it lie. He pulls on a pair of canvas breeches (can’t swim in a _sarung_ ). He has wasted enough time in contemplation and polite chit-chat. Time now for action.

The thought of Jack Sparrow’s dark skin, his flexible form, is like a siren song; as Jack makes his way down to the silent beach his fingertips curve and stroke across his palms, unable to resist touching something, anything. The blood is chasing and roaring through his veins, and he starts to run, slowing only when he reaches the black and silver sea. Doesn’t want to make a splash. There’s only a sliver of moon; if he approaches stealthy, from the shadow side, he can haul himself up the anchor cables. He’s rather looking forward to it. Burglary! That takes him back a way.

The water is cool on his heated skin and Jack swims fast and sure, out to the _Pearl_ where she rocks gently at anchor. There are lanterns at her bow and stern but it is late and she is quiet. In ten minutes he has reached her cables, and begins to climb up t’ward the hawse-hole, where he pauses and peers through. There is a distant figure walking on the quarterdeck; when it turns, Jack climbs quick and silent and lands softly on the deck. A deck which burns the soles of his feet with prickling memories. He crouches in the shadows, waiting till the silhouetted watchman turns again, then slips below.

He makes his creeping way along faintly remembered stairwells and passageways, listening for others’ footsteps, ready to melt back into dark corners, but there is no call for it. He makes for Sparrow’s – their – old cabin first, though he knows if he thinks about it that Sparrow’s unlikely to still be there, being Captain now. Lifts the latch, slow, silent; pushes the door open. There it is, the place of remembered delights; but the (empty) cot seems wider now; and it’s definitely not Sparrow’s anymore, the sheets and blankets are stretched with military precision, and the cabin smells, frankly, unnaturally clean; Jack stands there for only a moment, then backs out again. He tries to recall where Tobias slept; he believes it was at the side of the Great Cabin, and makes his way abaft.

He comes to the low and blackened doorway, and his heart is pounding and thumping. Quietly, quietly he opens it, praying that he will not find William Turner lying beside the man he seeks, and peers inside.

His prayers are answered.

Thin silver moonlight splinters through the mullioned windows of the cabin, pooling on the dark floorboards, and there, at right, illuminating the sprawled figure of Jack Sparrow, lending his skin an unfamiliar argentine glow. Jack closes the door behind himself, and just stands; and just looks.

Jack Sparrow lies on his belly, one arm dangling from the side of his cot, one leg flexed and bent; a soft and crumpled sheet now covers only his right leg and part of his body. He breathes deep with sleep, face presented to the moonlight. Jack, silent as a cat, steps closer. Closer. He kneels by the cot; does not want to be looming over Sparrow when he wakes. Memories push insistently at him, reminding him of everything this body was to him, did to him, did with him. The hair is longer now, more thickly dreadlocked, more full of beads and fetishes, but as richly black as it ever was. The arm, dandling in the air, is a little more muscular, and the hand (always seeming a little too large for such an elegant limb) is rougher, the veins on its back more pronounced; the wrist still sports a motley collection of leather strips and twine, just in case, just in case. The long and narrow back has not changed, though the scars have faded, and Jack’s fingers twitch at the memory of cleaning them, slowly and carefully, and the sweet skin he would encounter as he did so. The flex of leg makes a hollow and curve in the pale backside, oh god, beautiful, beautiful… as beautiful as the muscle of thigh and the bony elegance of ankle and foot; it is all unutterably, unreasonably, unbearably lovely, and the feeling that it gives Jack, had he ever been subjected to it before, would be recognisable to him as homesickness.

Jack leans over him, smelling warm breath, breathing in the air that has been all through this body in a way that he would give anything to be. His blood courses, loud in his ears, and the sight of Jack Sparrow is making him shaky with desire, making the Remnant enthusiastic in a way it hasn’t been for quite some time. He reaches out, gentle, careful, and runs a fingertip along the puckish line of Jack Sparrow’s eyebrow. Sparrow takes a deep breath, but does not wake. Emboldened, Jack does the same to the warm, pouting lip of the partly open mouth. It is as soft, as giving as ever it was.

Sparrow takes another breath, so deep it’s a sigh, and mumbles, “Go ‘way, Will, ‘m ‘sleep.”

Fuck, thinks Jack, I knew it.

_Hee hee, my darling, did you not listen, did you not hear what he said and meant? Go ‘way, he says! Go ‘way, baby Turner, he don’t want him! And did he ever tell you go ‘way Jack-my-Jack, and did he, eh?_

Jack concedes that he did not, and that on balance, this utterance is a positive one; and so, on balance, this is probably a positive time to take action; and he bites his lip, and then bends and does what he’s been longing with his whole heart to do. He whispers, “Not Will, Jack”; and kisses Jack Sparrow’s breath-moist mouth.

And it was worth twenty years’ wait as it courses through him, hot and strong and beautiful for one split second, till he feels a startle rush through Sparrow and a hand of lightning and iron clamps around his throat; his eyes fly open and so do Sparrow’s, and then the hand is gone, and Sparrow pushes himself up on his elbows, spine curving like a snake’s, and his smile is slow and bright as he says sleepily, “I knew it, Jack, I knew you’d come; I knew you wanted me still.”

“Still,” echoes Jack, foolish with desire; and then Sparrow rolls over onto his back, and his strong hot hands are on Jack’s shoulders, still chilled and damp, and he pulls Jack down and kisses him truly and properly; lips part and tongues revisit places they’ve missed for so long, so long, and Jack Sparrow’s mouth is a sweetly musty furnace, all gold and ivory and wet flesh, and his tongue sends vibrant shimmers of pleasure throughout Jack’s body; his hands push up into Jack’s still damp hair, pulling him closer still, and Jack hears a mewling hum of pleasure coming from one or both of them, he’s unsure which, but oh it’s the sound his soul wants to make. Jack Sparrow under his hands again. Jack Sparrow here and clutching at him.

It’s a delight beyond reason, it fills him with a burning, expanding warmth, oh god he wants this man, he wants him so so so badly, and Sparrow’s trying to pull Jack onto the cot with him, and Jack reminds himself why he is in fact kneeling on hard boards instead of writhing against this warm and lovely body; and so he stays right where he is. Sparrow’s hands wander over the ridges of scar tissue on his back, and that skin is numb and tender all at once, and his touch gives Jack the strangest pleasure, an unnatural admixture of terrible clarity and absolute vagary as his punished skin struggles to feel the warm touch; and Sparrow makes a sound, a saddened, questioning sound; and Jack says, “Three years, mate, three years on a slave galley”; and Sparrow pulls at him, and kisses him with a glorious intensity, as if to say every sorry in the world at once, and tries once more to get Jack onto the cot with him. Jack resists, and puts a finger to his lips, and says, “Shhh, let me, just let me.” And he pushes the tenacious remnant of sheet from Jack Sparrow’s body and oh god _looks_ and Sparrow just… lets him.

And there it is, all the rest of it, every bit as lovely as he remembered, and yet marked just as he is; scarred the same, though not, not the same at all; there are marks of accident and combat (a long, slicing line up the left thigh, and another on the right arm, and two dark and gnarled gunshot scars below the collarbone) and other marks of art and design (tattoos curling over dark skin, a golden ring through one dark nipple) and yet others that were placed by law and punishment (a branded P on the wrist; Jack holds his hand next to it, with his twin V, and Sparrow grins a lopsided grin as if to say, see, brothers).

Sparrow’s narrow fingers are sliding along the scar on Jack’s arm, and along the continuation of it across his chest; his touch, his face, ask the question.

“Harpoon,” says Jack, foggily.

“Whaling?”

“Domestic dispute.”

Sparrow laughs. Jack runs his tongue over the long scar on Sparrow’s bicep, asks, “This?”

“Fight,” says Sparrow, and Jack rolls his eyes at the non-answer; “Navy” he elaborates, and indicates the scar on his thigh, and says, “Ditto”; points to the brand (“VOC, not this trip”) and the gunshots (“Pirates”) and then holds up his forearm in the moonlight, where strange scars trace the tracks of his veins on the delicate skin over the crook of his elbow (“Ill-advised experimentation”).

Jack looks at them all, and touches them all, and runs his tongue over them all, and loves them just as much as every inch of unmarked skin. All beautiful. All unbearably beautiful. And if he feels this way, then maybe it is possible…? Maybe…?

And as his tongue runs up the length of the scarred thigh, he can no longer ignore the fact that Jack Sparrow’s insistent hardness is pressing up against him, up against his chest, and its silky, heated touch generates desperate desire and unutterable jealousy both. He looks up at Sparrow, and black eyes stare back at him, and he wonders how it’s possible that something so black and fathomless can say so much, and whether he must be imagining all they’re saying; but then they flash with wicked mirth, and Sparrow says, “So is this just a sightseeing trip, then, Jack?”

Shaking his head, Jack wraps his hand around the heft of Sparrow’s cock and kisses him, so that Sparrow sucks in a noisy breath and arches beneath him; Jack loves, loves the feeling of this reaction, and says, “No, not just; though the sights are… spectacular.” He kisses his way all over that lovely face, the delicate eyelids, the high cheekbones, the glorious line of jaw, as his hand makes long, slow strokes, and Sparrow hums his appreciation; and his right hand, exploratory, delves into Jack’s coldly wet breeches, burning where it curves over his chilled arse. Which feels, oh, fantastically good; but Jack’s not yet ready, not ready, for Jack Sparrow to find out everything. So he pulls the hand out again, and says, “Let me, I said; let me show you why I would not have left you.” Sparrow grins, and laughs, and arches and rolls his head in his pillows and says, “Oh, god, yes, show me, Jack, fuck, show me it all.”

And Jack does.

*

It’s like some strange midnight dream and Jack Sparrow can’t quite believe it, but he’s trying to stay on top of it and not ruin it; there’s still, somewhere, a remnant of the fear that last time he pushed too hard and fast and sent Shaftoe running, though he knows now that’s not the reason, but he can’t risk it; and Jack Shaftoe is here, right here in the dark, has swum out to the ship and crept his way in, but he’s not yet _all the way_ here, and he won’t come and lie beside Jack; which is more frustrating than Jack could’ve imagined; and yet he’s here and his hands, his great warm hands are everywhere, and he’s kissing Jack with such certainty and fabulous straightforward Shaftoe heat, that it makes Jack shiver and quiver and ohhh if he has to do this Shaftoe’s way then he will, god dammit, he will, he will do it any way that Jack Shaftoe wants to do it.

So he doesn’t wrestle Shaftoe up onto his cot, and doesn’t shove his hand down Shaftoe’s breeches, and doesn’t climb up on his hands and knees and beg, _Come on Jack oh please please fuck me like you did ‘cause there’s never never been another like you Jesus Jack I want it so badly_ ; instead he spreads himself out to Shaftoe’s touch and delectation and writhes and hums and shudders as Jack Shaftoe slowly and surely deliberately drives him up to an unbearable pitch of ecstasy. Shaftoe kisses and bites at his throat as his hot hand strokes Jack hard and dry till it’s a delight tinged with pain, and he seems to know the very point where it’s too much, and spits upon his palm and slides it tender round the head of Jack’s shaft; and then Shaftoe’s wide red mouth licks its way down to his nipples, and plays with and tastes the golden ring there and pulls at it till Jack hisses and then pulls some more, sending waves of something right down to the root of his cock.

And since doing it Shaftoe’s way seems to involve a lot of Not Grabbing, Jack doesn’t, but instead lets the need out through garbled sentences and words and mumblings; _There, god I’ve dreamt of your hand there Jack, there hold me hard you won’t hurt me fuck yes that’s good that’s good oh mate your mouth please please tell me you’re going to put your mouth on me, I want to fuck your mouth Jack I want it I want it_ ; and his knees come up so that he can brace and push into Shaftoe’s fist, till like a wave of absolution Shaftoe’s tongue slides down the centre of his belly, circling round his navel, and then coming up to meet his hand on Jack’s cock and Jack curves up into it, eyes closed, and though it seems ungentlemanly his hands can’t help but bury themselves in Jack Shaftoe’s moonlight-pale hair and move him as Jack wants him to move and then _unh_ Shaftoe’s mouth opens wide and takes Jack all inside, into wetness and heat and under a strong muscular tongue; and he can feel the back of Shaftoe’s throat oh fuck oh fuck it’s good.

Shaftoe’s left hand is wandering over Jack’s face, and Jack tilts his head and takes two fingers in his mouth, biting and licking and humming, and ohh the other hand is strong and sure on his balls and one finger’s stroking back and back oh god Shaftoe go on do it go on; and Jack’s trying not to choke him and fuck him but Jesus how can he not when Shaftoe slides two fingers into his own mouth alongside Jack’s cock and then takes them wetly back and Jack brings his left knee up further still and then pulls his right leg up under Shaftoe’s body and wraps it round his poor scarred back and thus gives him all the access and permission in the world. Shaftoe groans deep and Jack cries out with the vibration of it and then bites down on Shaftoe’s salty fingers to stop more noise as Shaftoe’s slick fingers yes yes slowly push into the great hungry emptiness inside him and fill him, fill him, fill him.

Jack remembers the very first time, and his finger alongside Shaftoe’s, and saying _remember there, oh god remember there_ and he bites harder and shudders as Shaftoe still remembers, and remembers, and remembers till Jack’s fists clench in the sheets and he can’t possibly not push into the suction of Shaftoe’s greedy swirling mouth, and more and more and more oh god please; and he can feel the slow ascent as a dark golden heat sparks deep in his gut and then with three fast thrusts he gives in to it and lets it flame and burn and gush in glory.

Beautiful, Shaftoe. Beautiful.

Jack lets out a long, slow breath, shuddering slightly as he feels Shaftoe swallowing around him, and then gently releasing him, withdrawing. Shaftoe rests his forehead on Jack’s belly, heavy and hot, and Jack can feel his own pulse under the pressure of it.

“Come here,” he mutters. “Come here…” and he pulls Shaftoe up, kissing him, grinning. Wanting, very badly, to return the favour, but still naggingly concerned at pushing Shaftoe too fast, too far.

Shaftoe’s kiss, deep and languid and piquant, suggests that Shaftoe is, however, potentially interested.

“God’s teeth, that felt good,” says Jack. “I mean, so much more than good, truly Jack; I’m not sure you have any idea just how much more than good I mean.”

“I think I can imagine,” says Jack Shaftoe, who’s doing nothing but. He pushes damp strands of hair out of Jack’s eyes. “And I’ve not yet said it, but Christ, Jack, I’m sorry for what happened.”

“’Twasn’t your doing,” says Jack, all full of forgiveness now that he has Shaftoe back in his arms, and nearly, nearly back in his bed; damnation, why won’t the man get up off the floor? Perhaps he needs to be reminded of just how much Jack wants him.

“Do come up here, Jack; come here, close to me, I need to touch you, I want to taste you,” Jack murmurs into Shaftoe’s ear, his tongue darting out to tickle and lick. “Come on, come on…”

Shaftoe closes his eyes, and says, “There’s… things I need to tell you, Jack. It’s been a long time… not everything’s like it was.”

“I know that, mate, and I don’t care; whatever’s changed or been done or said, it ain’t anything that can alter what I want with you here and now; and anyway, you’ve all the time in the world for _talking_ and _telling_ , and I want to listen to it all, I swear, but first it seems only gentlemanly to show you, just as you showed me, why I wouldn’t have left you either…”

“But Jack, I -”

“Shh,” says Jack forcefully, and stops Shaftoe’s mouth with two fingers; he sits up, swinging his legs off the side of the cot so that Shaftoe is kneeling between them. He runs his hands over Shaftoe’s shoulders, arms, broad brown chest, and leans to kiss him, with absolute warmth and desire; Shaftoe seems pulled in two directions at once, not pushing up against Jack as Jack might have expected (well, did actually) and yet certainly not resisting, and participating hungrily in the kiss; Jack thinks he’s nearly there, nearly there; and maybe Jack Shaftoe just needs to recall more of how he makes Jack feel and think…

So Jack’s kissing his way back up over Shaftoe’s face, and over to his ear, which makes Shaftoe pant and squirm, and down his neck, where the motion of Shaftoe’s Adam’s apple tells Jack that he’s swallowing hard, and he starts talking. And he tells Shaftoe just how strong and lovely his face is, and how the ridged muscles on his abdomen make Jack want to push hard against it, and how Jack cannot see his long legs without wanting them wrapped around him, and how much Jack longs to see the curve of his arse again _and more oh Jack more_ ; how much Jack aches to take the glorious weight of Shaftoe’s cock into his mouth and taste and taste and lick and suck and then _oh Jack you know it_ just how much he wants to feel the burning beautiful weight of it pushing inside him, and –

“Don’t,” whispers Jack Shaftoe, “Don’t.”

And Jack’s so frustrated he could hit him, and he scowls blackly and demands in a low growl, “Why in the name of Beelzebub should I _not_ , Jack, ain’t you here, and don’t you want me as I want you?”

But he doesn’t get an answer to this question, beyond an incomprehensible look from Shaftoe, because his door creaks open and in steps Will Turner, and the look on Will Turner’s face is enough to shut anyone up.

Shaftoe doesn’t move, for which Jack, as the only naked man in the room, is enormously grateful, since Shaftoe’s the closest he’s got to a covering right now. There’s a particularly ominous sort of a silence, which is finally broken only by Will saying “Oh.”

Oh, indeed.

Jack doesn’t want to hurt Will Turner, not a bit, not a whit, he never has done; but he can see quite clearly that he’s hurting him rather badly, right now. So he should go to him, and endeavour to make him feel better, shouldn’t he? But that’s clearly impossible, since it would indicate to Jack Shaftoe that he’s the lesser of Jack’s concerns here, and that would be an unforgivably stupid impression for Jack to convey.

Jack compromises by squeezing Shaftoe’s arms, hard, while he says “Will, mate… you’ve taken me rather by surprise.”

“Clearly,” says Will, giving Shaftoe a look of utter hatred, which is returned by a look of (ha!) absolute disinterest. Jack adores Shaftoe for that look.

But Shaftoe’s disengaging Jack’s hands, and standing; Jack sees Will’s fists and jaw clench, and thinks for a moment that he’s going to hit Shaftoe, which Jack is fairly certain would be a very bad idea.

“I’m going to go,” says Shaftoe. “You probably want to talk.”

No! thinks Jack. Mate, that’s the last thing I want to do. “No need to be precipitate,” he says hurriedly. “P’rhaps we should all… have a drink, eh?”

“I preferred Mr Shaftoe’s plan,” says Will, glaring now at Jack.

“Bye, Jack,” says Shaftoe; and Jack wants to leap up and enfold him and say _don’t go, stay with me, I’ll get rid of him, I will_ but he’s certainly not able to inflict that level of cruelty on sweet Will Turner; so he just says, “See you soon, eh mate?”

And once again, Shaftoe’s gone; and once again, Jack’s left bereft.


	4. impofperversity | Trochal, Chapter Four

  


Jack gathers his sheet about his hips, and stands, lighting a lanthorn. The dark is too close, too intimate, for this conversation; a conversation which, frankly, he’d still prefer to avoid, since he can’t see any good coming from it. But one thing you have to say for William Turner, junior – he’s not one to hide from the unpleasant. Stands and takes it on the chin. Possibly to a degree that suggests he doesn’t entirely _mind_ being hurt. Jack’s mind, still struggling its way out of the gutter, takes this thought a little further than it should probably go, and he bites the inside of his cheek to stop it. Concentrate, man!

Will still stands by the door, a carefully stony expression on his face.

“There are some stories,” says Jack, hanging the light from a low beam, “that I haven’t told you, Will. That I haven’t told anyone.”

“Hard to imagine, Jack,” says Will, his voice hard as his visage. “You seem to do nothing _but_ tell stories some days.”

Jack shrugs. “And some of ‘em are even true… and then again, some of the truest ones never see the light of day.”

“And that… _vagabond_ … is one of the true ones, I suppose.”

“Yes, he is.”

“But it was… such a long time ago,” says Will, and Jack thinks, sometimes that doesn’t make a damned bit of difference; but you’re probably too young to understand that.

“Nevertheless,” Jack says, “it was an important story to me.”

There’s a small silence, and Jack hopes for a moment that they’re done, and wasn’t it civilised? But no, Will’s off again, and petulant. “I was worried about you, Jack, that’s why I came. You were not yourself today, not once you’d met him, and I came as soon as my watch was over, to see that you were alright, and then I find you… I find you…” Will gestures roughly, a frown building on his perfect features.

Jack sighs. He’s just going to have to be honest. “Well, I could say, Will, that he came to me, and not the other way ‘round; but that would imply that I wouldn’t have gone to him, and frankly I would have, if I’d thought he'd have it.”

Will’s jaw tightens. Jack goes over to him, puts a hand on his shoulder; Will pushes it off, and his eyes flash.

“So that’s it, then, Jack, is it? You choose him over me? Well, you might have told me so before I came in here and made an even greater fool of myself; but oh, perhaps you were not ready to tell me so before; perhaps you were waiting to make sure that you had Jack Shaftoe before you got rid of me. You’re low, Jack, truly; I’d thought you were better than that.”

Jack honestly can’t think of anything to say; he spreads his palms in supplication, and tries to make it into a joke for a second, before changing his mind and deciding it’s a little early in the proceedings to be taking that tack.

“I’m sorry, Will, if you think that of me,” he says finally. “I didn’t have any such intention. You’re a good man, and a delightful… companion, and I swear, any man in his right mind would want you; hell, I know they do, plenty of ‘em, men and women both; but… me and Jack Shaftoe… there’s a history there, Will, that meant the world to me once, and I can’t _not_ try to get it back again. I can’t. And I’m sorry, from the bottom of my disappointingly black heart, if that causes you pain.”

“Pain? Don’t flatter yourself, Jack,” says Will. “What makes you think our… our… our _fucking_ meant any more to me than it apparently did to you? It was entertaining at the time, I suppose, but hardly more.”

Jack is closer to loving Will Turner right then, for those straight-faced lies, than he has ever been when they lay tangled and sweaty together. “’Course,” he says. “I was lucky to have you, mate, even briefly.” And he means it. He’s full of affection for the boy, ain’t that a strange thing? “Here,” he says, “here,” and holds out his arms.

Will looks at him hopelessly; he’s so _angry_ with the man, and yet maybe it’s more sadness than anything else; and yes, he wants to be held, wants it; so he goes to Jack, and they hug each other close, and Jack says, again, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

And Will’s face is in Jack’s hair, and Jack smells rich and warm and just as he always smells, _after_ ; and Will still, still wants him. He’s appalled with himself, that he could have so little pride; that it can be so obvious that Jack wants another, and yet he still yearns to have Jack curving against him, volcanic and demanding. It’s too pathetic. He has to leave, or he’ll try to kiss the man, he knows it.

Oh, God damn Shaftoe, whoever he is, whatever he may be to Jack.

And Will makes a resolution.

_I am going to stay here, and be right where Jack can find me. And when Jack bloody Shaftoe has gone, as he doubtless will, well, then I will still be here. And I can make him mine, again._

*

The rest of the night isn’t exactly restful; Jack’s torn between the dreadful temptation to go ashore _right now_ and pick up where he left off with Shaftoe, and the feeling that he shouldn’t push things, that Shaftoe has some reason for doing things at his own pace. He tosses and turns in sheets that now waft up tantalising waves of Shaftoe and sex whenever he moves.

What is it about Jack Shaftoe that has attached itself like a lamprey to his heart and won’t let go? Why is he so damned special? Jack’s only the vaguest idea of what Shaftoe’s been up to for the past twenty years; he was hardly listening to a word today, lost in his own mazy thoughts; and yet still, he only has to see him, and something whispers to him, _that’s the one, that’s the man who’s your equal and complement, and can you feel it, the wholeness when he’s there?_

He finally falls asleep again just before dawn, and subsequently doesn’t wake till rather late; when he does, it’s to the pounding of Mr Gibbs’ fist on his door.

“Urgh, what?” groans Jack, before the events of the previous day and night come flooding back and wake him more thoroughly than any door-thumping. Gibbs enters and glares suspiciously at his Captain.

“’Morning, Jack, though barely,” he says. “Seems you had a rather interrupted night last night by all accounts.”

“I was indeed remarkably popular,” concedes Jack, with a smirk.

“Yes, well,” says his First. “Whatever you did, it’s put Mr Turner in a bate, and he’s taken off in one of the boats –”

“Oh, Christ,” says Jack, having a sudden vision of William challenging Jack Shaftoe to some hare-brained duel, and subsequently, he has little doubt, being hacked, disinterestedly, to pieces.

“ – and gone fishing,” finishes Gibbs, to Jack’s relief.

“Oh, well then, fair enough,” says Jack, deciding not to elaborate on his previous ejaculation. “So I’ve got to get up because…?”

“Well, are we staying here the day, then?”

“Yes, most certainly; in fact, and you’d know this if you hadn’t been prone on the floor of the pub at the time” (Gibbs flushes and harrumps) “I think we’ll stay for a week or so, presuming no unwelcome visitors disturb us. Tell the boys they’re at liberty, and tell… oh, I don’t know, who’s been wicked recently? Choose a couple and tell them they’re in charge.” Jack waves a hand, vaguely, not really managing to conjure up any enthusiasm for administrative detail.

“Alright, consider it done.”

“I shall,” says Jack, summoning up a trace of grace and gratitude. “Thank you, Mr Gibbs. And if the boat’s going ashore, make sure it waits for me, will you?”

Gibbs nods and retires. Jack pulls on a pair of light cotton breeches, and goes up on deck, where the day is bright and hot; he lowers a bucket to the lapping waves, hauls it up, and upends it over his head, rubbing away the dirt and sweat of the night, and rinsing again, and again, till he can smell nothing but salt and sunshine.

Nice and clean. So that he can persuade Jack Shaftoe to make him nice and dirty again.

*

Jack takes the ribbing of his crew in good heart; he did make them wait an unforgivably long time, till he was good and ready and looking his very best. He doesn’t really think that Shaftoe would care one way or another, but it makes him more secure in his irresistibility. He’s taken extra time with all the things he remembers Shaftoe liking; his eyes are blackened carefully, he’s attempted to run a comb through those few parts of his hair that are still combable, his shirt is open just a little further down than usual; and, oh yes, he smells just faintly of vanilla and coconut. Just as a reminder.

He’s going to find Jack Shaftoe, and kiss him warm and slow, till he melts and lets Jack rub against him, and then he’s going to run his hands down over Shaftoe’s chest, down over his belly, and he’s going to…

Damn, that was fast; they’re here already. Jack’s company spill enthusiastically from the pinnace, half of them making straight for the Bomb & Grapnel, the other half wandering along the end of the strand to the cheerful hovel where several smiling and cooing native girls are making their fortunes.

Jack scours the waterfront, but no sign of Shaftoe; he’s not on the verandah of the Bomb, either, and Jack can’t imagine him sitting inside in the gloom; he decides, first, to try Shaftoe’s home, which had been pointed out to him on his Tour yesterday. He sets off across the scrubby clearing, scattering fowl in his path, gathering a trail of children.

The longhouse has a low roof, in the native style, and concessions have been made to the Europeans in the form of walls; _farangs_ being known to have an unnatural attachment to privacy. It’s silent; Jack raps on the door, and pushes it open, calling his arrival.

But the bed is empty, there is nothing and no-one to be seen.

Jack sighs; dammit, he’ll just have to have this reunion in the Bomb, in front of the boys. Ah, well, they were going to have to get used to it at some stage. He heads back, somewhat slowed by the swirling cloud of children, whom he amuses mightily by baring his gold teeth, and they scream, wide-eyed, at his wondrous oddity.

Shaftoe, Shaftoe, where are you, Jack Shaftoe?

Jack stands silhouetted in the doorway of the Bomb, peering into the gloom till his eyes adjust. Several faces turn briefly to see who the new arrival is, and Mr Foot, busy behind his bar, calls out a greeting; but no Shaftoe.

It’s making Jack irritable. The sight of Enoch Root up by the window, poring over some book, pretending not to see him, makes him even more irritable.

“Enoch!” cries Jack, deciding to spread the irritation, and he pulls up a chair to Enoch’s table.

“Captain,” says Enoch, coolly, placing a marker on his page. “Still here, I see.”

“I’m in no hurry,” says Jack. “All the time in the world, me.”

“I wish I could say the same,” says Enoch, regretfully, and motions back to his reading. Jack ignores this rather obvious Hint.

“Seen Mr Shaftoe this morning?” he enquires, innocently. There is a momentary pause – a pause so slight that only a man who was truly on the lookout for a Signal would mark it – before Enoch says, “No.”

Jack grins inwardly. Bloody Enoch Root, with all his secrets and agendas. “Only, I’m looking for him,” he says. “And I really do need to see him. And…” he swings his boots up onto a stool; “I am in fact so very determined to see him that I b’lieve I’ll stay right here – by which I mean, in Queena-Kootah, if not in fact in this fine establishment, and possibly even at this very table, which has such a delightful view – until I locate him.”

Enoch gives Jack a long Look, and leans back in his chair. Jack, smiling, returns his gaze.

“He’s gone inland,” says Enoch. “For some time.”

“Where inland?”

“Hill tribes. He’s given to exploring. I don’t know where he is.”

Jack considers. He’s not particularly keen to believe a word coming out of Enoch’s mouth, particularly when they are such disheartening words. Serendipitously, Mr Foot wanders over to enquire whether Jack is a paying guest, or merely a trespasser. Jack agrees that he would indeed be missing out on one of life’s finer pleasures if he did not sample Mr Foot’s rice wine, and then, as if in afterthought, calls after the publican’s retreating back, “Jack Shaftoe, Mr Foot, where’s he headed off to?”

“Up in the hills,” says Mr Foot, as he walks away.

Fuck.

Jack takes a deep breath. Why? Why? What’s gotten into the man now? Surely it can’t be because of Will Turner’s sudden appearance last night? Bloody Vagabonds, can’t keep them in one place for ten minutes.

“Could you,” he says to Enoch with an admirable degree of forebearance, “give me _some_ indication of where I might find him?”

“Why?” says Enoch blandly.

Jack feels curling frustration writhing in his belly. This is starting to piss him off rather badly. “What’s it to you?” he snaps.

“Quite a lot, as it happens,” says Enoch. “Jack’s an integral part of this Enterprise. I don’t tend to set heavily armed cutthroats on the tail of my business partners.”

“I assure you, I certainly don’t seek to cause him any harm. Quite the reverse.”

“I don’t find that prospect any the less disturbing, actually, Captain Sparrow.”

“Enoch,” says Jack, with a gentle smile, leaning forward, “if you don’t tell me where the man’s gone… I’m going to gut you where you sit.”

Enoch feels the padded prick of a knife against his belly, beneath the table. Alright, so Jack Sparrow’s willing to play rough.

Unfortunately, so’s Enoch Root.

That gentleman narrows his pale eyes, and gives Jack a look which says, well, my friend, if you want information, information I’ll give you. It being my specialty.

“So you really, really want to know about Jack Shaftoe, do you?” says Enoch, with a tinge of regret in his voice.

“I know plenty about Jack Shaftoe, Mr Root; the only relevant information which I am lacking, and therefore seeking, is his current whereabouts.”

“As to that, I can only give you the likely square mile; I’m being entirely honest with you when I say I don’t know exactly where he is.”

“Well, that’ll have to do then,” says Jack.

“But there is certain… other information which I suspect you’re not party to.”

Jack knows as much; it was clear last night that Shaftoe had something to tell him. “Do spill,” he says, in as bored a voice as he can muster. “My knife arm’s getting sore here, and I should hate it to go into some form of involuntary spasm.”

“I know that you and Jack had some sort of… previous relationship,” begins Enoch.

Jack says nothing, but twists his knife encouragingly, as if to say, just get to the point. Enoch does.

“And I’m presuming you’re keen to resume it; but you need to know that Jack Shaftoe’s in no position to do so; and has, in fact, taken to the hills rather than inform you himself.”

“Oh, so he asked you to pass on this vital piece of information on his behalf, did he?” says Jack, finding this particularly unlikely.

“Quite the reverse; he made it clear to me that he did not want you to know at all. But I’m a great believer in freedom of information.”

“Come then, release this piece of information from its dreadful bondage, and let us watch it gambol happily across yon grassy sward.”

“Alright then, here it is: Jack Shaftoe is also known as Half-Cocked Jack.”

Jack grins. He loves Shaftoe’s tendency to go off half-cocked. Enoch looks at him rather pityingly.

“Which is… a completely literal nickname, I’m afraid, Jack. Horrible pox cauterisation incident. Jack Shaftoe is Incapable of renewing your acquaintance in the manner to which you had, according to my sources, become rather fondly accustomed.”

Jack feels the blood drain from his face, and his thighs clamp protectively together. Jesus, Enoch Root has a sick, sick imagination.

He gets up, and walks carefully over to the bar, waving Mr Foot over. The Sultan comes up, bearing the previously discussed rice wine, and apologising for its lateness. Jack leans against the bar, and drains it. Disgusting. Utterly necessary.

“Mr Foot,” he says, “does Jack Shaftoe have any… _noms-de-plume_ worth noting?”

Mr Foot smiles. “Oh, many, Captain, many; the French call him _l’Emmerdeur_ , and I’m surprised you’ve escaped the story of that epithet; in more Eastern Parts, Ali Zaybak; the English, both patriots and ex-, simply know him as Half-Cocked Jack, King of the Vagabonds.”

Jack flinches. “Why?” he forces out.

Mr Foot’s smile becomes wider. “Oh, has he not shown you? You are in a minority, my friend; Jack’s Credential is a famous sight in these parts. Or what remains of it.”

“What remains of… of his…?” Jack gestures vaguely at his own nether regions. Mr Foot nods, eyes wide with the amusing horror of it all.

“May I have another?” Jack says faintly, proffering his mug, and the publican refills it with alacrity.

“Does make one feel rather vulnerable, doesn’t it!” he says, with salacious delight.

Jack cannot reply. He takes his drink, and, ignoring Enoch Root, walks outside like an automaton. Every time he thinks of it, oh, his gut twists. Poor fucking Shaftoe! Jesus!

And yet, at least half of Jack’s sympathy is, he must confess, reserved for himself. This is a cruel blow. A cruel blow. He stands outside on the verandah, squinting; the sun on the sea is too bright for these thoughts. He swills the optimistically-monikered wine, and leaves the mug on the table; then makes his weaving way back to Shaftoe’s home, and shuts the rickety door against the inevitable children. He doesn’t feel like making faces any more. He sits on the edge of Shaftoe’s bed, then takes off his hat and lets himself fall backward; lies staring at the thatch above the poles, at the skittering lizards rustling through it.

Suddenly, last night – hell, all of yesterday – make a lot more sense to him. No wonder Shaftoe was so jumpy. He tries to imagine the roles reversed; what if _oh god ouch, ugh_ that had happened to him? Would he be able to roll on up to a lover of twenty years back and say, _well, mate, let’s do that again; only I should warn you that in the meantime I’ve been relieved of my cock_?

Actually, he’s impressed that Shaftoe had come to him at all, last night. Cheeky beggar. Ooh… that must mean, oh yes, that Shaftoe’s particularly fond of Jack, no? Wanted him even though he couldn’t bring himself to tell all?

So what’s today about, eh? Running for the hills?

Jack closes his eyes and imagines it. _So, I’m Jack Shaftoe; and I’ve just given me, well, Jack Sparrow, the head-job he’s been longing for for decades; and he wants to return the favour, and he’s – oh Christ –_ Jack pauses to slap himself on the head _\- and he’s rattling on about the fabulousness of my equipment, and how much he’s missed it, and how much he wants to get fucked by it, and I know I can’t comply, and then in walks a gorgeous creature who not only can, and has, but wants to again right now; and so I leave, and I…_

Well, of course he made for the hills.

The question is, the question is… does Jack still want to go and find him?

And Jack is unutterably relieved when every drop of blood in his body shrieks out in unison, _of course I fucking do!_ And last night only confirms all that Jack Shaftoe can make him feel, with or without a fully functional member; and only confirms all that he wants to make Jack Shaftoe feel, and he’s terrifically curious as to what, exactly, that might amount to; Enoch Root’s implication had been, not terribly much, but Jack’s got a certain amount of confidence in his ability to affect Jack Shaftoe, and more confidence in his extensive knowledge of Matters Carnal, many of which, he reminds himself, sweet Jack Shaftoe had never permitted himself to be subjected to; but now, oh, now!

Jack hates to think of what Shaftoe’s been through, and he’s not going to let it get one tiny jot worse. He’s going to make it better. Yes. Now. All he has to do is find him.

He makes his way very quietly back to the door, and pulls it open very suddenly; as he suspected, the small boy who seemed, yesterday, to be Shaftoe’s self-appointed but woefully inadequate bodyguard falls into the room, then scrambles to his feet and would flee, if his arm were not firmly caught in Jack’s grip.

Jack crouches down to the child’s level, and shows him gold teeth in a gesture of friendship. The child is big-eyed and silent.

“Mister Jack,” says the pirate, pointing to the interior of the longhouse; “Where is he? Where is Mister Jack?”

The infant points up into the jungle.

With a great deal of pointing and sign language and encouraging grinning, Jack says, “You… take me, bring me… to Mister Jack, eh? Up there? You… take me?”

The child stares at him, suspicious; protective.

“Oh, please,” says Jack, dropping his gesticulations and mugging. “Please, mate, please take me to find Jack. Please.”

And sincerity seems to be the best approach; Jack’s hand is gripped by a small, bony paw, and he’s led off, into the jungle.


	5. impofperversity | Trochal, Chapter Five

  


 

In the early stages of establishing Mr Foot as Sultan, there had been some interesting negotiations with the indigenous Queena-Kootahns; negotiations which were doomed to failure on the natives’ part, primarily because they had already self-administered what might have been considered a divide-and-conquer policy, splintering into dozens of small autonomous communities which were in a semi-constant state of internecine war. This left them woefully unable to mount any sort of serious alternative to a self-appointed Sultan, particularly one who came equipped with a large and fearfully armed vessel, populated by a fair number of fearfully armed men. Still, it did require a lot of Community Liaison; and Jack Shaftoe, being Fabulously Exotic, noticeably Fearfully Armed, and, if it came down to a serious power struggle, Inhumanly Formed and therefore Possibly Preternatural, was the perfect frontman. So Jack has a lot of friends and acquaintances up here in the hills; and it seems like a perfect opportunity to visit one of ‘em.

Tuan Dasig has been most accommodating; he has provided Jack with a hut of his own, and there is a pig slow-roasting over a spit in welcome; the younger women of the tribe are pounding some root into a paste which they apparently consider to be comestible, though Jack remains skeptical; and others are excavating the latest batch of the local brew, a powerful peppery oddity for which even Mr Foot has been unable to muster any enthusiasm, all in preparation for an evening of hospitality.

Jack had no intention of being such a drain on local resources; he’d merely hoped to hide out for a few days. But he has clearly underestimated the extent of his celebrity, and even possibly popularity. He’s going to have to front up and party, tonight, which he has to confess isn’t exactly what he feels like. Meanwhile, he’s sticking to his original plan, and hiding out for all he’s worth.

The hut is not up to the standards of his own, being dirt floored, and equipped only with a woven mat in lieu of bedding, but is quite sufficient for his current needs – silence and privacy, and space for thinking. Thinking thinking thinking which is not something he is naturally fond of, nor given to, and frankly he wishes he could do something else instead, preferably something which requires armaments and results in loud and cathartic explosions. But nothing is to hand. So thinking it is.

There are two choices that Jack can see.

One, stay out of Jack Sparrow’s way till he gives up and goes home. Jack can see the _Pearl_ from here, a mote in the bay, so he’s perfectly provisioned to follow this plan. But he’s unsure exactly how long it might take. Possibly some time, if he knows Jack Sparrow.

Two, be a man and front up to Sparrow and explain why he’s really not in a position to deliver on his implied promises of last night.

Neither of these options are terribly enticing.

Jack lies back on the mat, and sighs. He’s managed to accept a lot of very odd occurrences over time, and just live through them, and take advantage where he can; but this one is really messing with him. Jack Sparrow is just so damn… so damn… _desirable_ , and Jack can’t stop the words _if only, if only_ running through his head. Why, why had he believed Barbossa? Why hadn’t he stayed and spoken to bloody Bootstrap just for five more minutes? It would all be so utterly different. And here he is with a second chance, Sparrow back from the dead, and he’s… unmanned. Jesus! _Jesus!_

Oh, he can’t lie here in the half dark, stewing, all day. If he’s going to stew, he’ll stew properly.

Queena-Kootah is a volcanic island, and as such, has the delightful advantages that accompany barely subterranean lava; viz., instances of thermal activity at levels which are not only non-fatal, but even pleasurable. Tuan Dasig has introduced Jack to his village’s warm secret before; Jack doesn’t think it’ll make him feel any better, right now, but it can’t make him feel any worse.

He makes his way along the narrow jungle path to where the sound of running water cuts through the endless faunal chirp and rustle; and there it is, as he recalled, a dark and steaming pool where the forest stream becomes deep, and hot water bubbles up from the sandy bottom. There’s no-one else here. Jack drops his _sarung_ , and walks into the water; lets himself slide into it, float down in the deep hissing heat, sink into its sulphurous embrace.

It takes him back to another place, another warm spring, in the snows of Bohemia. Eliza. Eliza, with her Books of India, who showed him that he was not Dead in all the ways he thought he might be.

Eliza who encased her small hand in sheep gut so she would not touch him. Eliza who stood behind him but never kissed him, never shared her sweet skin with him. Not with a filthy, pox-ridden vagabond. Which, Jack admits to himself, he unarguably was. But still. She certainly knew how to make him feel like it, in retrospect. It really wasn’t an awful lot like being with Jack Sparrow. Who wanted to touch him in every place, in every way, even in ways that Jack wouldn’t let him.

Wouldn’t let him… then.

The soft water is hot against his skin. But not as hot as Jack Sparrow’s burning touch was, all those long years, and all those short hours, ago. The tiny bubbles that tickle their way up his legs are so tender… but make him think only of Jack Sparrow’s hair, trailing over his skin. Jack stays underwater, stays down till his lungs burn and he feels sick with the watery heat of it all; he is waiting, waiting, for his body’s need for breath to drive the thought of Jack Sparrow from the top of his mind; but it won’t go, won’t go, until dark sparkles start to flash behind his closed eyelids and he fears he will drown himself if he continues on this path, and pops like a cork to the surface, hot water streaming down his face, and stands, up to his chest in it still.

And when he opens his eyes, there like a steamy mirage in the jungle, stands Jack Sparrow.

Jack runs a hand over his eyes again; perhaps he stayed down too long.

But no, there he is, though he’s not saying anything; instead, he’s taking off his hat, and coat, and boots, and sword and pistol and belt, and Christ, he’s got a lot to divest himself of; and Jack stands there, staring gormlessly for a moment, watching Jack Sparrow getting progressively closer to naked and clearly intending to join him in his soak, and then realises that really, this is his last opportunity if he wants to be the one to tell Sparrow of the Incident; and this should preferably occur before they are pressed bare-skinned against one another, and the telling becomes superfluous; and he finds his voice while Sparrow is still wearing shirt and breeches, and says, “Wait, Jack.”

Sparrow looks at him, dark eyes unreadable, uncharacteristically quiet. Jack heaves a deep breath and says, “I should have… what I failed to tell you last night was that… well, I’m not how you might recall me”; and he walks up out of the water, and lets the fact of the matter speak for itself.

Sparrow’s poker face cracks a little, and Jack can see the flinch; but it’s not a flinch of horror, or revulsion; more of sympathy.

“You knew,” says Jack, with absolute certainty.

“Only very recently,” says Sparrow, unable to take his eyes off it.

“Root?”

“Aye.”

And Jack rolls his eyes, and is about to become quite vocally irritable at Enoch Root’s presumptive intervention, when he suddenly calculates that, ergo, Sparrow has come up here, and hunted him down, and begun to remove his clothing, all whilst in full possession of the facts.

That has got to be one of the best realisations of Jack’s entire life.

And yet, though here Jack Sparrow is, he’s distinctly immobile, and still staring like an imbecile. Jack supposes it is rather hard to take in.

”D’you want the full story?” he asks, quite prepared to do his well-rehearsed and frequently very well-received rendition of the entire escapade, complete with several characters, voices, and a rather witty introductory song, even though its visual punchline has been pre-empted.

“Probably not necessary. Pox cauterisation incident, apparently?” says Sparrow, with admirable calm.

“Yes, all very shocking; and yet lucky they say, in that it was such a clean severance, and the heat of the implement resulted in, I’m told, remarkably little blood loss; ‘tis all hearsay, of course, since I was entirely insensible at the time.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” says Sparrow, rather faintly. “I mean to say, not glad of the occurrence, but most definitely glad of your insensibility; not something, I imagine, that any man would want to experience in full consciousness.”

“No,” says Jack. “Though if I’m honest with you, the aftermath wasn’t an awful lot pleasanter. There are certain bodily functions that must be persisted with during the healing period, and that caused a notable degree of discomfort.”

“And… now…?”

“Doesn’t hurt at all, now, but my aim ain’t what it used to be,” says Jack, wilfully narrowing the scope of the question.

“Are other… functions… still…” Sparrow gestures hazily; “…functional?”

“After a fashion,” says Jack, cagily, and as if on cue, at the thought of Other Functions, the Remnant twitches and swells. Jack’s mortified, and covers it with belligerence; “Why d’you ask? Since you’ve the whole sad truth now, I’m sure you’ll understand why I absolve you from all and any thoughts of taking up where we left off; and I apologise for my false pretences of last night.”

“I haven’t come up here for absolution, Jack,” says Sparrow; and, astonishingly, Jack can see an answering (though far more convincing) swelling in the pirate’s breeches. Which, surely, can only mean…?

“You haven’t?” says Jack, with commendable calm, though every sense is singing out, _Come here, touch me, touch me as I touched you last night and give your skin up to my hands again, please, touch me_ ; Jack has been touched remarkably little in the last decade, at least not by those who were not attempting to inflict pain, or injury, or both, and in that context of emptiness, the heat of Jack Sparrow’s presence is a prickling torture; Jack’s mind is almost entirely blanked out by the idea of his body pressing up against Sparrow’s, all that skin on his, all that breathing golden heated skin curling against him.

“No,” says Sparrow, and pulls his shirt over his head. Jack stares so hard that he feels a tic starting under one eye. The skin. The gold. The scars. The muscle, and bones, and the soft dark hair under his arms as he pulls off the shirt. The memories and the now. Sparrow’s black eyes are boring into his as if to say, watch me, Jack, I mean this. He loosens his breeches and with aching slowness pushes them down, over hipbones that are every bit as sharp as Jack’s fond recall, over what Jack knows is still a beautiful high curve of arse, over _oh god yes_ an erection that’s as enthusiastic as it ever was; lets them fall and steps out, and still stares at Jack, but with the glimmerings of a smile, that gets wider and wickeder as he walks over, walks into the water, stands right before Jack, and leans slowly in, closer, closer and yet not touching, taking so long about it that Jack fears his heart may explode in his chest. But he doesn’t want to pre-empt anything, he loves the fact that it’s coming closer and closer and hasn’t hit yet and yet o! it’s going to! Any moment now, any moment now he will have Jack Sparrow’s skin all against his; he’s so taut and keyed up that he jumps when Sparrow’s cockstand pokes into his belly, slides up the line of hair below his navel. And that lovely face is so close now that he can no longer focus upon it, and he closes his eyes and wants it all so fiercely and so badly but must be certain that it’s not coming to him out of pity, and says, “Jack, are you sure you want to do this?” and then isn’t sure what he means by “this”, and elaborates, though only rather slightly, with “any of this?”

“Let me tell you a story,” says Jack Sparrow, his mouth close to Jack’s ear (and the pirate catches both Jack’s hands in his own, and as he speaks, his fingers will twine and trace and make incessant love to Jack’s palms and fingers and wrists, and Jack will slowly and lovingly return those caresses). “Once there was a pirate, and he was young, too young, very young, but he met a man; and though this man didn’t want the pirate at first, the pirate could see such things in him, such life and strength and capability and beauty, that he wanted the man enough for both of them; and he tricked and lured and tempted with everything he had till that man fin’lly came to him, and when he did, oh, there had never been a thing like it in the pirate’s life; and he was greedy, and demanding, and wanted more of him, and more, and all; but this beautiful man gave it, he had the greatest capacity for giving that the pirate had ever seen. And the pirate never told him so, but he loved him.”

Jack feels explosive heat beneath the skin of his face, and a great expansive weight in his chest, at the words, and he starts to say, “Jack”, but Sparrow talks on, not letting him interrupt.

“And then out of nowhere he left, and he took the pirate’s heart with him; and the pirate thought he’d taken it careless, and thrown it to the sharks, or that’s how it felt. And he determined that he’d never suffer so again, and no matter how lovely the words that others said to him, no matter the beauty of their face or form or of the touch of their hands, he was hardened to it, and couldn’t bring himself to risk such a hurt again. And then, one strange and sudden day, he found the man again, and found what’s more that he had never thrown away the pirate’s heart; that he had it safe in his keeping, and would give it back; and do you think, Jack” (and here he focuses once more on Jack’s face, and Jack is dizzy from the beauty of the man, and from the sparkling tenderness of his fingers upon Jack’s hands, and from the sweetly overripe deliciousness of his words) “that any circumstance in this world; any circumstance at all, save that this man no longer wanted him – and if I’m honest, possibly not even that circumstance – would stop the pirate now from reclaiming his heart?”

And with that he lets go of Jack’s hands, and wraps his strong brown arms around Jack’s waist, and pulls him close and finally, finally, kisses Jack on the mouth, firm and sure; and as Jack’s being kissed, as his lungs are frantically dragging in air to try to cope with the wonderfully dizzying effect of Jack Sparrow’s body pressed against his own, the Imp is splashing about him and crowing, _I telt it to you so, I did, oh yes oh yes Jack Sparrow’s going to give it to you my darlin’ all and all of it hard and fast oh godly god you know it my love and I telt it to you so!_

And as usual, under the twin influences of Sparrow-induced euphoria and Imp-induced recklessness, Jack can’t sit quiet with what he’s being offered, but wants more; and he spreads his hands wide over Jack Sparrow’s tight clenched arse, digging his fingers greedily into hard resistant flesh and crushing their hips together, Jack Sparrow’s hardness against himself, and he mutters, between licks and bites at Sparrow’s ear and neck:

“Well, it’s a nice story to be sure, and very sweetly romanticised, but I’d expect nothing less from you; still, I’ve a story of my own, fairly similar in construct, in which these two men additionally shared some far baser instincts; and the sight and smell and touch of one another made them want, very very badly, to suck and grind and fuck and spend;” (Sparrow’s head tilts sideways and he makes a particularly gratifying sound at these words); “and in my story, there’s a reunion also, and it’s a wonderful thing, but the one man, Jack, feels a need to be sure that the second man, the pirate, still feels that same way about the whole business. Because the first man, he wants it more than he cares to admit. But he’s changed. And the second man may not appreciate the change.”

“Does the first man,” says Sparrow, rubbing his face against Jack’s like a particularly enamoured cat, “recall just how much he used to like fucking the second man?”

“Oh, very much so,” says Jack, balls tightening at the thought, and less incensed at the insensitivity of this question than he might have expected to be.

“And does he recall just how enthusiastic the second man invariably was to be on the receiving end of said attentions? I hope he does, or the second man really wasn’t communicating very effectively.”

“He has a reasonable recollection,” says Jack, marginally more cautiously.

“So has he any particular reason to assume that the second man would not be content – nay, more than content, let us say _would not be overwhelmingly delighted_ \- to reverse the situation, and attempt to repay some of that pleasure?”

“Well, I follow your argument, and yet I reiterate that there’s at least _one_ particular reason.”

“Then let’s abandon this overanalysed couple, and be simple about it, and I shall say to you, Half-Cocked Jack Shaftoe, that though I’m unutterably sorry for your loss, it doesn’t diminish my overweening desire to kiss you and touch you, and – how did you put it? I’m sure I filed those words away for posterity – ah yes, to suck and grind and fuck and spend; I’ve wanted you since the first day I saw you and I want you now, and I want this – ” Jack sucks in a breath as Sparrow’s long fingers curl round what’s left of his cock, “ – and I want this – ” which is accompanied by the other hand sliding sure down the base of his spine, fingers splaying out so that they fan over his buttocks, save the middle finger, which pushes warmly into the cleft of his behind “ – and I want this…”

And there’s that mouth again, on Jack’s, and a tongue that seems to want to explore every part of Jack’s own; and Jack can’t quite believe how good those three things feel together, having never previously experienced the three of them at once, and never expecting to, post-Incident, but the Remnant certainly appreciates it; he feels the odd shivery numbness that comes from the touch of all scar tissue, but it’s beautiful, because it’s Jack Sparrow’s hand, and because lovely, vicious, romantic, maddening Jack Sparrow wants his hand to be there.

Jack’s kissing Sparrow back for all he’s worth, his heart thumping, and he suspects he’s just made it perfectly clear that he does, in fact, after protesting repeatedly to the contrary, want (more than, yes, just about anything) to be fucked by Jack Sparrow; and that makes him feel wildly free, and ludicrously lucky, the latter of which is certainly something he hasn’t considered himself to be recently. He can’t wipe the smile from his face, and he pushes his fingers up into Sparrow’s hair, so hot and damp up against his skull, and holds him away, briefly astonished at the beauty of that mouth wet and swollen from kissing, and laughs out an _oh, yes_ ; and as he does, it’s like a signal to both their bodies, and they come crashing together, hands grabbing restlessly, mouths fastening on one another greedy and rough, and Sparrow hooks a leg round behind Jack’s knee and Jack loses his balance, staggers, and Sparrow, grinning, adds his weight to the fall so that they plunge together into the steaming pool.

And time stops as Jack is back under the water, but not alone this time, and Jack Sparrow’s mouth on his seems, indeed, the only possible source of breath and life in the world. And he flashes again, so briefly, back to the wintery day when he’d thrashed in water just like this with Eliza’s cunning hands upon him, but this time he sees it with no fond memory, just with a sad disillusionment for her chilly skill; it could not be more different to being here now writhing and kissing and (if they didn’t stop it soon) drowning with blackgold Jack Sparrow, in the heady wondrous anticipation of what they were going to do to one another.

There are bright warm colours floating across Jack’s vision, and muted echoing voices in his ears; his feet find purchase on the sandy riverbed and he stands, still wrapped in Jack Sparrow’s embrace and kiss, and as soon as his head leaves the water, the voices are not muted at all, but shrill and shrieking with laughter and delight; he feels Sparrow’s kiss turn to a smile, and the pirate mutters, “Damnation, Jack, sprung in the spring,” as they both turn to see a bevy of children on the riverbank, three women behind them, babes on their hips, the women’s hands hiding shy giggles. The children, however, make no such polite attempt to hide their amusement.

Datuk can barely speak through peals of shocked laughter, but he takes his duties as interpreter seriously; “MissaJack,” he finally splutters, “eating now. Tuan Dasig say come now, come.”

Sparrow smiles, and says sotto-voce to Jack, “How do we make ‘em go away?”

“No chance,” says Jack. “Come on, mate; we’ve got a pig to eat.”

“Oh, by all means; but before I eat the pig, I’d really set my heart on some other _bonnes bouches_.” These words are accompanied, underwater, by a deft exploratory hand that makes Jack hope to god that no-one can see below the surface.

“You’ll have to wait,” he says, “we’re expected… but, Jack?”

Sparrow turns his face to him, wet and gleaming, and Jack swats a hand at his shoulder, where the Imp perches, its cries of _lick it Jack-my-Jack o please lick it clean go on!_ all but irresistible; he fancies he hears a small splash behind him, and grins, and says, “But not long.”


	6. impofperversity | Trochal, Chapter Six

  


It can’t be said of Jack Sparrow that he has ever been chary of experimentation, even though, if he were more of a man to learn from his mistakes, he would be decidedly chary of some things by now, this being a perfect exemplar; viz., that he most certainly should know better than to take gourds full of thin grey watery vileness from mostly naked men whose eyes shine whitely in their dark faces, and who are nodding, and laughing so hard that the long hoops of bone in their ears rock back and forth, and to tip the contents of said receptacles down his open throat, without even checking first to see whether the local tradition is to give one gourd to each guest, or to put a whole party’s worth of the stuff into that one gourd and then ritually share it. The latter, naturally, turns out to be the case; but by then Jack has a burning peppery belly full of the stuff and is surrounded by villagers who are writhing on the ground laughing, tears rolling down their faces.

Oh well, thinks Jack. They’re probably underestimating my capacity to deal with the alcoholic, the hallucinogenic, and possibly even the downright poisonous. He grins back, mouth metallic in the firelight, and gives a gentlemanly bow, closely followed by a less gentlemanly belch.

Shaftoe’s mate, what’s his name, Dasig, comes back with the gourd; takes a mouthful in demonstration, gabbles at Jack, laughs more, and passes it to Shaftoe.

“Drink up, mate,” says Jack evilly. He remembers Shaftoe, under the influence. Liked it.

Shaftoe’s mostly dry now, though Jack’s wandering mind thinks that if he should stick a finger into the middle of that thick blond queue it would still be damp; pale tendrils of hair halo round his head in the firelight. He’s wearing that disgusting _sarung_ again. Jack wants, very badly, to dress him, instead, in the best clothes at his disposal; not just because he would look very fine that way, but also because Jack thinks that polite and proper clothing merely accentuates the wondrous natural savagery that Shaftoe seems to wear like a second skin; and just makes him want, more than ever, to separate Shaftoe from anything and everything that stands between his skin and Jack’s.

Jack’s head is faintly swimmy already; he finds that when he turns it, the world turns a beat later, as if catching up slowly to his gaze; and everything is taking on an unusually narrow and fascinating focus. Now, f’r example; all he can see is Shaftoe’s broad strong hands, wrapping round the smooth dry gourd, and taking it everso slowly to his lips; and Shaftoe speaks, but the words don’t seem to make it to Jack’s ears for long, long seconds.

“What d’you reckon, Jack?” says Shaftoe. “Can a Vagabond outdrink a Pirate? I couldn’t, way back then; but I suspect I may be able to now.”

Jack starts to say, “Nah, mate, it’s not worth it, you’ve no chance of victory,” but his numb tongue hasn’t fought its way through more than half this utterance before Shaftoe, to the shouts and stamps of his audience, has emulated Jack’s ignorant gulping. Jack stares, at the movement of Shaftoe’s throat, and at the thin trickle of liquid that spills from the corner of his mouth. His tongue, involuntary, makes a helpless licking motion; but the back of Shaftoe’s hand has wiped the trickle away before Jack can take any serious action.

Jack opens his eyes very wide in an effort to regain focus and sense, but this tactic has very limited efficacy. He appears to have (very rapidly) become very drunk. And happy. He starts to laugh, and Shaftoe laughs with him, the wide open curve of his mouth causing dimples that Jack wants to stick his tongue into.

“Yes!” shouts Jack cheerfully, and then, confident that none of these friendly smiling savages have even the faintest idea what he’s on about, “Jack Shaftoe is mine, ladies and gentlemen, good people of Queena-Kootah! And I’m glad you recognize that as a fine excuse for a feast, because I assure you it is!” They smile, and nod, and laugh at Jack’s obvious happiness, and Shaftoe’s hand is flailing in his direction, as its owner cries, “Shut up, Jack, and sit down, and they’ll feed us!”

“By all means, let us eat!” continues Jack, “because Jack Shaftoe would have it so, ladies and gentlemen, and can there be a better reason? Eh?” He gazes, rhetorically inquisitive, at the smiling circle around the firepit; they regard him in a friendly enough, but completely mystified manner. “No,” Jack answers himself, affecting a fond sigh, “there cannot be. So pray, continue, and thank you for your kind hospitality, and your very affecting Drink.” He bows again, and sits, which action does indeed seem to be some kind of signal, and food appears, great wooden platters of roasted meat, crisp and sizzled fat, sweet forest fruits, and heaped bowls of some odd white paste (“Don’t touch it, Jack, I swear it ain’t food for Christian men, even the least Christian among us,” advises Shaftoe).

Jack Sparrow, hot salty fat dripping into his beard as he eats his fill, could not be happier.

Which, earlier today, was really not his expectation. How can he be this glowingly cheerful, having discovered just today that the object of his desires has been so comprehensively unmanned? That is, Jack amends to himself, outside of the obvious watery-grey-liquid answer, which he’s certain is only a very small portion of it?

Jack’s happiness stems, simply, from the fact that he’s so utterly relieved to find that he still feels exactly the same way about Half-Cocked Jack as he did about the Full version. Feels a deal more sympathy, to be sure; and really, in that long hot sweaty trek up the mountain, wasn’t at all sure how he would respond to the sight of the so-called Credential, to the point that, when he finally found Shaftoe, he couldn’t bring himself to say a damned thing; and at this point in his life, that’s a feeling that Jack encounters only in the rarest of circumstances.

And then up he comes, out of the water, straightforward Jack Shaftoe telling his secret (and oh how hard must that have been? Jack’s experiences in life give him no barometer for this level of difficulty) and baring all, and two thoughts battle simultaneously for Jack’s attention; one’s going, _God’s teeth, half’s an optimistic assessment, but maybe they didn’t have a clear idea of the original extent_ and the other’s going, _oh thank fuck, it’s not too bad at all, that could have been a hell of a lot worse couldn’t it_ ; because, apart from being cruelly truncated and palely scarred, it’s still obviously what he had known and loved as Jack Shaftoe’s cock, and everything else seems to be present and correct. Jack’s been at sea for coming up three decades now, and the sea’s a hard place on men’s bodies (or, to be more accurate, the ships they sail in are); Jack sails now with a one-handed cook, a tongueless master, a gunner with a wooden foot, and he has no accurate count of the number who’re missing fingers, toes, or ears, so it’s not as if he’s a stranger to the Fates’ unaccountable taste for accidental amputation.

And when he found his tongue and asked Shaftoe outright whether it still worked, Shaftoe had demonstrated clearly that it did, and Jack could have sung for joy when his own body responded just as it always had; and why not? There was the strong, tanned, wiry form of Jack Shaftoe in front of him, all square jaw and blue eyes and black brows, all wide shoulders and long legs and sculpted stomach, and the line of muscle that ran down from his hips to his groin, as ever, was like a magnet to Jack’s eyes and hands and if he had his way his lips, and in summary, he was delighted to find, he _just didn’t care_.

No, that’s not right; he cares a great deal; but he’s not discombobulated by it in the slightest. He can imagine that that’s a hard concept for Shaftoe to swallow, and that it might take some time to convince him, but he’s willing to put in the hours.

He stares, mesmerised, at Shaftoe’s strong white teeth tearing flesh from some poor animal’s skinny bone, and is spinning in a world of his own when he suddenly becomes aware of a tiny hand sidling into his shirt. He turns, and slowly the world turns with him, and there’s a little boy, his head turned away to his friends as he shrieks and babbles, and his friends scream in warning as Jack turns, and the hand flies away; but Jack starts to laugh, he’s figured out what they want to look at. Saw them staring, down at the stream.

“Are they filching?” growls Shaftoe, throwing his bone at the children.

“Nah,” says Jack. “Just curious.” He grins, and beckons, and slowly, with a secretive air, pulls his shirt aside, showing the children the fat gold ring through his nipple. Funny little savages; he’s sure they’ve seen worse, ain’t they seen all their parents and grandparents with those bloody great bones through their ears? He thinks it’s the metal that they like the most. They huddle closer, whispering, peering.

Tipping against his shoulder, leaning his chin dizzily against Jack, is Shaftoe in all his warm solidity. Jack leans, everso slightly, back into it, sighing.

“Where’d you get that?” says Shaftoe, low in his ear. “I meant to ask, last night, but got… distracted.”

“You know us pirates,” says Jack with a grin. “Got to keep our personal wealth about us somewhere, and I was running out of ears. And hair. And less-than-perfect teeth.”

“See, and you’ve the temerity to ask me whether _my_ Incident was a painful one.”

“Oh, I confess, it hurt considerable; but now, Jack…” he mutters, turning his face so that his mouth is just inches from Shaftoe’s; and Shaftoe’s blue eyes stare sleepily, dazedly into his; and he’s suddenly no recall whatsoever of what he might have been saying. Like a slow sleepwalker, he puts his lips to Shaftoe’s, warm and giving, and hums in delight. But Shaftoe won’t be kissed for long; he growls, “Not here, Jack, all these children!” Jack can’t help noticing, however, that the tribe seem deeply unconcerned by these signals of a relationship whose nature would surely horrify the good people of their own, purportedly civilised, lands.

“Alright, alright,” he says; “What was I saying before you made me kiss you?”

“Telling me about this,” says Shaftoe, still crouched behind Jack’s shoulder, and takes the opportunity to slide a hand round under Jack’s arm and with the utmost gentility, stroke a fingertip over Jack’s ornamented nipple.

“Oh yes,” says Jack faintly. “Yes, well, it did hurt considerable, as I was saying, and you’ll note that I have only the one.”

“Pirates,” says Shaftoe, shaking his head, “You’ve no capacity to speak of when it comes to endurance, have you?”

“I don’t see you having subjected yourself to such a procedure, Mr Shaftoe.”

“Beg pardon?” says Shaftoe incredulously, with a clear implication that he’s suffered much worse.

“’Twas an accident,” cries Jack, outraged. “That ain’t at all the same thing as a choice, Jack. Choices require courage! Accidents require all manner of things, stupidity, inaccuracy, recklessness, sheer foul luck, none of ‘em a particularly enlightening commentary on a man’s bravery!”

Jack Shaftoe tilts his head as if listening to something, Jack knows not what, and laughs, and says, “Fair enough, Jack! If, as you say, I’m yours, let’s prove it, eh? Let’s make it as official an intention as it can be, given that we’re two fine men, a pirate and a vagabond, and ain’t never going to be a happily sanctioned pair in the eyes of the world; let’s you and I sanction it now, and give me a ring, eh darlin’;” (he says this last in a mocking, Sparrow-esque slur that Jack’s inordinately pleased by) “go on, one of these pretty baubles in your ear,” - he turns his head and licks at the hoops of gold that Jack sports – “and I’ll show you that the King of the Vagabonds don’t care a jot for pain; it’ll be nothing to me, Jack, nothing.”

“Nothing, eh!” slurs Jack, having claimed it as something, and feeling a need to defend it now. And also filled with a most enjoyable heat at the idea of marking Jack Shaftoe as his own. “We’ll see about that!” And he reaches up and disengages the fattest gold hoop from his left ear, where two dangle.

“You’re on,” says Shaftoe woozily, “But you’re to do the same, or rather I’m to, to you, and then we’ll see, Pirate, who’s the braver man.” He’s feeling terribly argumentative, though that’s not a particularly unfamiliar sensation, and also absurdly aroused by the idea of Jack Sparrow’s gold being embedded in his flesh. A link, a tie, a bond. How can you lose someone when you’re wearing part of them? And gold is, indubitably, a part of Jack Sparrow.

“Fuck, yes!” cries drunken Jack Sparrow, who, as we have noted previously, is not a man who always bothers to take instruction from past experiences.

“Dasig!” calls Shaftoe, waving merrily. “Dasig!” The headman wanders over, squats down before them, grinning whitely. “Djack?” he asks, guttural.

“Datuk!” Shaftoe says. “Tell Dasig here, that we want a needle, savvy?” He points to Dasig’s ears, with their long ivory pendants, mimes a threading motion. Takes the gold hoop from Sparrow, and holds it against his own chest. “Here, here; I need something sharp, Datuk, sharp, tell him.”

Jack grins at the stream of gabble that comes from the child, who takes the hoop, and mimes it all over again, and Dasig laughs, and cries out something to the others, and there’s a hoot of approval, and two of the women disappear into the darkness; they come back, and present Shaftoe with a long, wickedly sharp fragment of bone.

Jack stops grinning.

“Ah, no need, Jack,” he says. “Nothin’ to prove to me, mate, I know you’re up to it; don’t want to hurt you.”

Shaftoe comes round in front of him, sits crosslegged, silhouetted by the fire. His face is shadowed, unreadable. “Dasig,” he says, though he’s looking straight at Jack, with a crookedly intense smile, “ _Tuak_ , mate, we need more _tuak_.”

Dasig laughs again, and motions to the men across the firepit, and the gourd returns; Shaftoe downs half of it, wincing.

“Go on,” he says to Jack. “Do it.”

Jack’s torn between drunken recklessness, the desire for the irrational, the desire to mark Shaftoe, and the desire to smother him, instead, with kisses and sweet touch. He sits there, staring at Shaftoe, immobilised by it.

“Here,” says Shaftoe, and hands Jack the bony bodkin.

“I…” says Jack, swimmily, and instead, runs his fingers gently over the fine gold hair that rings Shaftoe’s nipple. “No,” he protests.

“Yes,” says Shaftoe, determined, and then leans in to Jack, pressing his forehead against the pirate’s; his bright eyes fix on black, and he says, “I want it, Jack; won’t you give it to me? And what pain would it be, to me? I’ve already lived through your death, mate; that thing can’t hurt me to any noticeable degree.”

“Are you sure?” says Jack, who’s helplessly warmed by these words, and as it turns out, finds that the desire to mark this man as his own has won over all his other tempting urges; but still he recalls Shaftoe’s claim that he’ll return the favour, which Jack really isn’t overly keen on, but he’s a fair-minded man.

“Are you scared?” counters Shaftoe, sitting up straight, grinning widely. Jack rolls his eyes as if this is the least probable of forty thousand alternative emotions. He shuffles forward, bone at the ready.

The men of the tribe start up a low thumping chant, watching, watching, and Shaftoe begins to laugh at the sound of it; Jack recalls Shaftoe’s different laughs, and he knows this one, and it’s a laugh of wicked glee. He strokes, once more, the sweet skin he’s about to incise, and Shaftoe’s nipple stands out high and proud; Jack places his index finger against one side, and positions the awl on the other; he fixes his eyes on Shaftoe, who gazes fiery back, and he licks his lips and then says, “You’re mine,” as he pushes with all his careful might.

The sensation of the flesh parting beneath the bone travels up into his fingers, makes him shudder, connects him directly to the heart of Jack Shaftoe, makes him want to cry out in exultation. Shaftoe makes no sound at all, though his nostrils flare, and he bares his teeth. The end of the bodkin strikes Jack’s finger, and cuts him also, and he’s pleased to share some element of the pain. The chant around them stops, dead, and it’s done.

“There,” says Jack, low, faint. He takes the gold hoop, twisting it sideways at its breakpoint, and says, “I have to thread it now; this will hurt again, Jack.”

“Ah, ’twas nothing,” claims Shaftoe, full of marvellous chemicals, bodily and otherwise. Jack slowly threads the bone needle through, lining up the end of the hoop with the needle’s end; the hoop is slightly wider than the needle, and even Shaftoe winces as it pushes in; and then it’s through, and Jack twists the hoop closed.

A thin trail of blood is meandering down Shaftoe’s chest. Jack, drunkenly savage, leans over and licks it away, and Shaftoe takes in a great heaving breath, as though he’s had no air in him for the past minute.

“One more thing,” says Jack, and he starts slapping at his coat pockets, till he finds the small pewter flask of rum without which he never leaves home; he takes a mouthful, and then puts his hands round Shaftoe’s waist, and leans down, and fastens his lips around the entire areola, letting the rum flow down against Shaftoe’s hot skin. He feels the twitch in the body beneath his hands, as it hits, and the sudden increase in the heartbeat pulsing against his lips. But he knows it will help the healing. Besides which, he wants very badly to kiss it better. He holds it there, for a moment, and then sucks up the mingled rum and blood, and swallows it.

“Are y’alright?” he asks, finally meeting Shaftoe’s eyes.

“That was an interesting experience,” says Shaftoe. “I can appreciate why you’ve only the one; though, being a mere pirate, you of course suffered far more acutely than I. So I’ll let you off the second.”

Jack laughs; Shaftoe is un-fucking-believable. “Oh, no, mate,” he says. “Share and share alike, I say. I’ve spilt your blood, you spill mine.” And though his heart is thumping, and he’s no particular wish for this pain, still he’s too numbed to fear it too greatly; and more than that, he wants to be similarly bound to Shaftoe; and more than that again, he’d sooner die than back down. He hands the bloodied awl to Shaftoe, and pulls aside his shirt, baring his unmarked nipple.

“Take it off,” mutters Shaftoe, eyeing Jack’s shirt; “Don’t want to bloody it.” But Jack’s cock twitches as he sees another rationale entirely in Shaftoe’s face. He takes off his coat, pulls his shirt from his sash and over his head; motions to Dasig for the gourd, and takes a serious swig; selects another earring, and pulls it out.

“Here you go, mate,” he says, nonchalant, heart hammering. Shaftoe takes it, but looks discomfited; looks at Jack as Jack had looked at him, a moment earlier. “Really, Jack,” he says, “No need; look, ain’t we a matched pair now?”

“No,” says Jack, seeking to close this logical loophole, “We ain’t”; and he twists and wrenches the existing gleaming ring from his chest.

Shaftoe watches in amazement, and laughs. “Well, you’ve set your mind on it, Jack, that much is clear, so who’m I to stand in your way?”

“Absolutely fucking no-one,” agrees Jack, wondering why he’s so happy that Shaftoe has just agreed to spear him through a tender body part with a sharpened piece of some late and unlamented creature’s skeletal structure. “So off you go, get on with it.”

“Alright,” says Shaftoe; and then grins, and admits, “but I should warn you, it hurts considerable.”

“I’m conversant with that fact, Mr Shaftoe. And yet here I am, bare-chested before you.” Jack can feel an odd, hammering excitement building in him, to be submitting himself willingly to this again, and at the strong capable hands of Jack Shaftoe. He wants it, rather surprisingly much. He grips his thighs, and says, “Come on.”

The chanting starts up again. Jack closes his eyes, to feel it all the clearer, and clamps his teeth together as he feels the sharp point against his flesh, Shaftoe’s bracing fingertip. He’s ready for it, but it doesn’t come; and then he feels Shaftoe leaning closer to him, and he holds his breath, and Shaftoe’s warm drawl, full now of a whole mix of exotic accents and tones and history, not that nasal London voice of twenty years ago, says, “You should know, Jack, that in that story: the first man loved the second man, too.” And with that, he pushes.

Jack’s filled with dark shrieking pain and bright delicious joy at the same time, and the combination rushes straight to his cock, and that, more than anything else, is the thing that he has to hold his throat tight and closed against, and not cry out; and he’s deeply relieved that he doesn’t hear his own voice in his ears, but only the harsh suck of his and Shaftoe’s breathing, and the rustling busyness of the jungle, and the crackling fire, and the nervous giggle of a child behind him; and he opens his eyes, and says, as if he hadn’t just been visited by angels and devils both, “The second man thought as much,” and grins.

Though he does wince as Shaftoe threads the earring through, his large hands so careful and tender; and here come the angels and devils again as Shaftoe’s mouth, full of rum, descends upon him; and Jack groans and arches his back, making Shaftoe snort rum out his nose, and say, “See, pirates, no endurance.”

“Ah,” says Jack, cocking an eyebrow, “we’ll see who has endurance when this odd excuse for a party is finished, mate.” With which utterance, he pulls Shaftoe into his arms, and kisses him roundly, all rum and blood, and he loses himself in a maelstrom of his pulsing blood, and of the shrill voices of the children, and of bright rhythmic pain; and of the wonder of Jack Shaftoe’s tongue in his mouth and hands on his waist and breath ragged against his face, and it all gets darker and warmer and louder and sweeter and he feels like he’s flying right up till he feels like he’s falling, and after that, he can’t recall a damn thing.


	7. impofperversity | Trochal, Chapter Seven

  


There are always hangovers, and mornings-after, and all those sorts of self-inflicted miseries, wherever one goes in the world, and Jack Shaftoe’s certainly no stranger to them; in fact, he’d’ve claimed himself inured to the majority of their ravages, having built up a considerable resistance to most of the concoctions that Mr Foot has been able to generate to date. But his state this morning, when he finally swims blearily to consciousness, makes him feel like an eleven year old sprat who’s had his first go at his granny’s gin, and next day feels that death is surely upon him. He’s face down in the dirt, with the cold stink of ashes in his nostrils, and something enormously heavy pressing down on his back; and there’s a nauseatingly painful thump resonating over and over behind his ears, and a very different, sharp and pulsing pain in his left breast, which finally helps him to remember what brought him to this sad state of affairs. His left arm is pinned, but he reaches round with the right, and as he suspected, encounters a heavy head of hair; Jack Sparrow’s sprawled across him, a deadweight.

Jack can’t decide whether he most wants to be sick, or to crow with happiness. It’s possible he won’t be able to abstain from either. Very slowly, he opens his eyes, and lifts his head. Weak sunlight is filtering down from the tree canopy; there are no other bodies lying out here, the natives apparently having more sense than the tourists when it comes to _tuak_. Along with the flooding spike of soreness from his chest, come flooding memories; gold in the firelight, and Jack Sparrow’s hands upon him, hot and sure, inflicting such pain and somehow such delight, and the sweetest taste he can ever recall, being the mixture of rum, and Jack Sparrow’s skin, and Jack Sparrow’s blood, all at once in his mouth.

Now, however, the inside of his mouth is more redolent of six month old hay. He sees the discarded rum flask lying at arm’s length and reaches for it, rinsing and spitting. The motion (or possibly the smell of rum) seems to bring Sparrow to consciousness also, judging by the pitiful groan that emanates from the deadweight and vibrates through Jack, so that he starts to chuff with weak laughter, and then stops abruptly as his head threatens to implode on the spot.

With all the speed of a hundred year old man, Sparrow sits up, and Jack, the weight gone, rolls over and squints blearily up at him. Oh, it’s very hard not to laugh. There are leaves in the pirate’s hair, and streaks of ash and dirt over his face and body, and dried blood scabs his chest; he looks as though he would rather, given the choice, be unconscious again. Jack doubts he himself looks any different. He passes the flask to Sparrow, who takes it gratefully, and rinses just as Jack had done, then clutches at his head.

“Oh,” whispers Sparrow, feebly, “I had no idea I could spit so… noisily.” He crawls slowly over beside Jack, and lies down beside him, shoulder touching Jack’s. “This is… bad,” he says, and what the utterance lacks in creativity, it makes up for in accuracy.

“Very bad,” agrees Jack, but he hasn’t got it in him to sound terribly sad about it; Jack Sparrow’s warm smooth shoulder is touching his own, and his chest is pulsing redly from the new and foreign presence of Jack Sparrow’s golden earring, and Jack squirms a little to recall what it was he claimed about that ring, and all the pledges it seemed to contain.

They lie there, unmoving, while the sun mounts slowly, and eventually, children come creeping out of the ramshackle huts that surround them, and later adults, several of them moving rather slowly and wincingly, but none of them quite as far under the weather as Jacks Shaftoe and Sparrow. The children start off quietly, giggling under their breath, coming closer as the two men pretend determinedly to be still asleep, neither being able yet to face the challenge of a conversation with very small and curious people who do not speak any of their combined library of tongues; but the children quickly become more vocal, and less nervous, until the nasal squawking that they call speech seems to be cutting through Jack’s head like a bonesaw, and he groans loudly, which quiets them, but only for a disappointingly short time. There’s nothing for it but to move; really, he can’t expect to nurse his head quietly in the middle of a village, can he? So he slowly and carefully, and after the first movement most regretfully, sits up; shakes Sparrow, and says, “Come on, Jack, let’s away.”

Sparrow heaves a great sleepy sigh and opens his eyes, and says, faintly, “Anywhere, Jack… anywhere quiet, that is.” Jack gets groaningly to his feet, swaying somewhat, and reaches down a hand, hauling Sparrow up. He gathers the pirate’s discarded clothing, and picks the ring that used to reside in Jack Sparrow’s left nipple out of the dirt, dusting it off, and handing it back; Sparrow re-threads it, absentmindedly. Jack finds him quite beautifully symmetrical this way, and stands dumbly for a moment, lost in heavy-headed admiration, which causes Sparrow to smile, though in a far more wan manner than Jack is accustomed to.

“I don’t think I can go all the way back down, just yet,” says Sparrow. Jack agrees that this would be a rather precipitate action.

“Water,” says the pirate, licking dry and dusty lips, “I think I need water.” He looks around him, but can see nothing that appears to fit the bill; he plucks distractedly at the leaves in his hair. “And I’m filthy.”

“You look fine to me,” says Jack, not entirely truthfully, but unable to resist the opportunity to leer.

“Where’s that stream?” says Sparrow, looking around with a disoriented air. “This way,” says Jack, and they set off, ploddingly, with a bedraggled tail of children following them some way into the jungle until a combination of Jack’s telling them to go home, and Sparrow’s illustrating the point first with his index finger, and secondly with flailing hands, and thirdly with a (deliberately inaccurate) kick at the foremost infant makes them somewhat less enthusiastic, and more open to the echoing demands of their mothers, faintly hallooing through the trees.

“Here,” says Jack, when at last they come to a narrow, fast-flowing stream; he kneels at its bank, and splashes his face, and cups his hands in the water, drinking deep. “It’ll make you feel better,” he insists, as Sparrow stands behind him, staring vaguely around.

“Oh… I’m sure it will, Jack,” Sparrow says, and crouches down, and does the same; “But I’d meant the other place, where we were yesterday; the warm place.” His knee nudges Jack’s, and Jack’s delightfully surprised to find that he seems to be able to be quite distracted from the ravages of his headache and nausea by the light that is reappearing in Jack Sparrow’s dark eyes.

“I liked it, there,” says Sparrow. “Till we was interrupted.”

“Mmm,” says Jack, recalling with great lucidity the point of interruption, and he hurriedly lurches to his feet; oh, Christ, there is so much that he wants to do with this man, and here they are in the middle of the godforsaken jungle; not so much as a bed between them; perhaps a warm dark pool of bubbling water will suffice?

“This way,” he says, over his shoulder, and sets off down a fork in the path. It’s not far, oh no, it’s not far. Revived by rum and water and lust, he’s feeling better every minute, and his heart’s thumping with a delightfully determined anticipation. Years’ worth of pent-up humours seem suddenly to be clamouring for exit, and oh lord what an exit it’s going to be; he recalls the wonder of Bohemia once again, and then laughs out loud, for this can only be so much the greater.

As he comes out of the trees, and sees the women by the pool, beating their rags on the rocks, he stops very suddenly, and is hard put not to stamp a foot in petulant rage.

“What?” says Sparrow behind him, view blocked by Jack’s broad shoulders.

“People,” growls Jack.

“I don’t care,” says Sparrow, which statement certainly gives Jack a moment’s pause.

“I do,” he says stoutly.

“Ah, they’re only savages, Jack; surely they’ve seen men washing themselves, before now?”

Washing? _Washing?_ Jack’s not particularly concerned with the cleanliness aspect of this operation. But still! If it gets Jack Sparrow naked, it can’t be a bad start. He shrugs, and walks on over, bowing in greeting to the women, wishing them _selamat siang_. They giggle and chorus his greeting back at him, bringing his headache back with their high pitched voices.

Jack, turning his back on them out of concern for their sensitivities, removes his _sarung_ and wanders into the pool, whose soft hot swirls and bubbles do indeed feel mighty good. He could get used to it. Up under a bank of overhanging, overgrown ferns, at the other end of the spring from the washerwomen, the water is shallower, no more than a couple of feet deep. He sits, leaning against the bank, still in time to watch Jack Sparrow, supremely unconcerned at disrobing in front of a collection of strange women, step out of his breeches and saunter into the water. Jack’s fingers twitch, aching to touch all those new marks again, and more. It’s odd, the urge that has come to him now, and he’s never really experienced it before; has never really, utterly, wanted to be filled and penetrated and _fucked_ by another human being; Eliza’s cunning activities were interesting, to be sure, and effectual, but were so very much a means to an end; here, now, Jack’s body is thrumming with an urge for the means itself. Christ, he wants Jack Sparrow inside him.

How long can laundry take, really?

Sparrow sinks under the water, and emerges long seconds later, black head slick as a seal’s. He swims lazily over in Jack’s direction; Jack expects him to come and sit by his side, but Sparrow, as always, confounds his expectation; he pushes Jack’s knees further apart, and wriggles in between Jack’s legs, leaning back against him, his wet head on Jack’s right shoulder, solicitously avoiding the new jewellery.

Oh god, oh god, it feels so utterly, utterly good that Jack has to swallow down an urge to sing. Under the water, Sparrow’s hands wander languidly up and down Jack’s thighs, his fingers reaching round to explore the ticklish skin behind Jack’s knees. He sighs in deep contentment, and says, “Ah, this is better.”

“Yes,” says Jack faintly, since this isn’t an assessment that can be rationally disputed. Having Jack Sparrow lying back against him, up to his chest in warm sulphurous water, with his entire body spread out thus in front of Jack, and his ear right by Jack’s mouth, is indeed _better_ than just about anything Jack can recall. If he stretches, his arms can reach down to the hard golden curves of Sparrow’s thighs; oh, such ridiculously beautiful legs!; and Jack strokes them, then puts his hands at the flat muscular juncture of leg and hip, presses till he can feel the jumping pulse; licks surreptitiously at Sparrow’s ear, and gets a low muttery growl in return. He wraps his arms round Sparrow’s ribs, squeezing him, squeezing him, till Sparrow laughs in low delight. With the utmost care, he runs a fingertip over the new gold that Sparrow wears. Remembers all they said, last night.

Jack Shaftoe’s said a lot of things, before now, when he was immensely drunk. But those things were different. The vast majority of those things were not true.

“Jack,” he says, and thinks it will never be easier than right now to say this, right now when Jack Sparrow’s in his arms but cannot see his face, “I meant what I said, last night, if you happen to recall it; I meant, that I’m yours.”

He can feel Sparrow’s wide and lazy smile against the side of his face. “Blood and gold and rum,” says Sparrow, “a truly piratical oath, eh? And may the Devil strike me down if I don’t keep it, Jack.”

Jack’s possibly still a little drunk from that infernal concoction, or possibly just drunk with happiness, and he says, “But you don’t even know yet whether I can, I mean we can… that is… you know,” he ends, rather vaguely.

“D’you mean, whether I’m going to like fucking you?” says Sparrow, his hands sliding under Jack’s thighs, pushing between sand and flesh, fingers sliding hard against the muscle. “Oh, I know it alright, Jack, I know it very well indeed. The question is rather, will you? And will it achieve… the desired result?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve every confidence of that,” says Jack, who truly does.

“Why?” says Sparrow, inquisitive as ever. “Do tell; has some other fine gentleman proved that point to you?”

“Certainly not,” says Jack, piqued by the query. “Although… well, if you must know the tale, the answer is a fine lady. Who wasn’t known as such at the time, but now, I hear, is a Duchess in two countries; she demonstrated her skills to me, in fact, in a spring much like this one, and she was, by her own account and indeed by my own observation, most familiar with Books of India.”

“Oh,” says Sparrow, and Jack could swear that he’s disappointed, though he can’t tell whether the disappointment stems from Eliza’s sex, her knowledgeability, or her mere presence in Jack’s history. He kisses the sweet brown curve of ear again, and says, low, “Whereas you, my friend… you _are_ a Book of India; and I cannot accurately express to you just how much I wish to read you, from cover to cover; but since, as you know, I don’t have my letters, I shall be forced to do so by hand rather than by eye.” And he brings up his knees, the better to shield the pirate from the view of the washerwomen as he slides a hand down to wrap around a gratifyingly hardening shaft. Sparrow takes a deep shivery breath, and braces back against Jack’s shoulder, and tilts his head back, and claims Jack’s mouth for a kiss, his twisty tongue curling against Jack’s in a way that makes Jack’s cock push, optimistically, against the base of Sparrow’s spine. Jack closes his eyes, and is back in a dark, warm, swimmy place that he seems to recall from last night, and the world spins slowly about him, on the sweet axis of Jack Sparrow’s plump teardrop of a mouth; only a particularly enervating shriek from the women across the pool, on noting this activity, brings him out of it. He stops kissing, though he doesn’t remove his hand, which he’s reasonably confident they can’t see.

“Oh, Jack,” he mutters, “why won’t they just cease and desist and avast and away? Can they not see how much I need you?”

Sparrow tilts his head and gazes at Jack, tilting his hips wantonly into Jack’s grasp, and grinning a particularly devilish grin, while somehow managing to simultaneously bite his lip, an expression which Jack finds most admirable upon him. “What’s the infernal hurry?” he says, “We’re not going to do it here.”

“Yes, here,” says Jack, gripping more firmly to illustrate his point.

Sparrow gasps and wriggles deliciously against him, but insists, “No, Jack; I shan’t be compared to that foolish hussy who apparently had you at her mercy and yet did not have the sense to claim you, once and for all, as her own; when I make you mine, it will be in our own bed, on board the _Pearl_ , where I can take all the time in the world about it.”

“But there is no comparison being made!” cries Jack, aghast at the prospect of delay. “She is nothing compared to you! She’s no longer anything to me, I swear, and if I need to rename Eliza Peak to assure you of this I certainly shall, for ‘Sparrow Peak’ rolls off the tongue equally as well; I couldn’t call it ‘Jack Peak’ for fear of being thought self-aggrandising, you understand, and… where was I? Oh, yes, the point being that hot springs of any kind are known for being quite perfect for this type of activity.”

“Not as perfect as the Captain’s cabin of the _Black Pearl_ ,” says Sparrow, stubbornly.

“Then, pray, why not _Minerva_? I assure you she’s just as fine a vessel, why don’t we wait till she gets back in?” says Jack, with what he hopes is clearly a sarcastic intent.

“Well, obviously, because we won’t be resident on _Minerva_ ,” says Jack Sparrow, and both of them at the same time wish he hadn’t said that, and become rather quiet.

Jack has been deliberately avoiding this train of thought for the past two days, with much the same determination as he would avoid a pack of ravening wolves; it certainly hasn’t escaped his notice that they are, currently, both planning to go half way around the world, but unfortunately in opposing directions, and that he really is in the middle of something reasonably Important.

And yet, in a spectacular instance of managing to hold two diametrically opposite thoughts in his mind at once, and hold them both to be true, he has quite sincerely told Jack Sparrow that he’s no intention of leaving him again.

“I think I mentioned…” he says, slowly, thinking that perhaps he should let go of Sparrow’s cock while they have this conversation, but finding that his hand really is not so inclined, “that in a month or so we’re heading to Japan, and thence Manila, and we hope to track the Manila Galleon across the wide Pacific… I did mention that, didn’t I?”

“Possibly,” says Sparrow, and the blood appears to be draining from his face, or maybe that’s just the cumulative effect that Jack’s hand is having on him, “but I confess I wasn’t listening much the day we met. I must say, though, Jack, it’s a rather extreme plan, and terribly likely to end in your death by means of starvation, shipwrack, drowning, et cetera; and then of course if you make it to the other side, there are all manner of dreadful Indians and Spaniards to deal with; so it doesn’t seem entirely irresistible, as plans go.”

“There are people relying on me,” says Jack, sadly. “My boys, and all.”

“Your _what_?”

“Mate, you really weren’t listening, were you? Jimmy and Danny, my boys. Off on the _Minerva_ at present, with the rest of the Cabal.”

“When on earth did you find time for that?”

“Well, I have packed a fair bit into life since I saw you last; besides which, my role in their creation was an unimpressively minor one.”

Sparrow lays his head back on Jack’s shoulder and stares up at the patch of sky above them, where stormclouds are starting to race, in a manner that bodes no good for either (meteorologically) the weather or (metaphorically) their immediate future together.

“But I can’t leave the _Pearl_ , Jack,” he says. “You have to come with me; and I’ve everything you’ve ever wanted there, and back in the Indies, Jack, the more Occidental lot that is, I’ve such a cache as you’ve never seen or imagined; we’d want for nothing, and whatever the aim of this Enterprise is, it ain’t going to get you more than you’d have with me, I swear it.”

Jack believes him. And yet…

“Why not go home the other way, then?” he suggests, optimistically. “Why not join us, and track the Galleon?”

“D’you know what your chances are, Jack? Of making it across alive? D’you know how many of those damned things they’ve sent out there?”

“Nothing ventured,” says Jack, who suspected as much, but has been wilfully not thinking about it, as he has been wilfully not thinking about many things recently, and with his other hand he strokes down between Sparrow’s thighs, and up, and Sparrow makes room for his hand, lets him hold and caress his balls, and though the pirate’s breathing hard in Jack’s arms, and reaching up and back to run his long fingers through Jack’s hair, still he says, “You can’t distract me away from this subject forever, Jack; though I think… I think… I’ll let you, for now… mmm, yes… but, Jack Shaftoe…?” He squirms round, wriggling back till he can put his arm across Jack’s shoulders, giving Jack even more access to everything that he wants, and his face is very, very close to Jack’s, and damp with water and sweat both, and he says, “Whatever and whoever is on that ship, Jack, they’ll never need you like I need you. And they’ll never make you as happy as I’m going to make you.”

“So you say,” says Jack, grinning to watch Sparrow’s eyes close and his mouth fall sweetly open as Jack pushes his fingers firmly along the tender skin behind his bollocks, his other hand still stroking with a determined rhythm that makes Sparrow tilt and thrust his hips up into it, and Jack smiles to feel the clench of arse against his thigh; “and yet, you’re still set on making me wait for this advertised joy, are you?”

Sparrow is quivering and biting his lip with the urge of staying still and calm, at least above the waterline, and there’s a noticeable pause before he manages to reply with a “Yes…” that turns rapidly into a torrent of small whispered yesses, and his fingers clutch and grab at Jack’s thigh underwater, and it’s so sweet and easy, and Jack turns his mouth to the pirate’s ear, and says low and close, so that his lips and breath are kissing and speaking all at once, “Yes, you’re cruel, to make me wait; I want it so, Jack, for I remember how you looked when I was inside you. I’ve never forgotten your face then; it made me feel like a king, nay, better than a king, as it happens, to watch your face so, and to feel your body clutch tight around me, and I want you to feel as I did, and by Christ I want to feel as you did, I want to want it so much that I’ll beg you, just as you did me; you said to me, _Please Jack, please, fuck me, don’t make me wait another moment_ , and those are the words I want to say back to you.”

“Ahhh,” says Jack Sparrow, in a strangled squeak, and his eyes fly open, and he stares wide-eyed at Jack, but somehow isn’t there at all, and there’s a ripple on the silver surface of the water as Sparrow twitches and tenses and twitches in Jack’s arms, and then lets out a long slow breath and subsides, limp as a rag doll.

As if on cue, there is a great roll of thunder, and the skies open, great fat drops pouring down through the forest canopy, and Jack Sparrow sighs and laughs as he lies there against Jack’s chest, and opens his mouth to the rain; and looking at him like this, so happy and beautiful, Jack feels his heart expand like some slow-exploding grenado, and the _Minerva_ , and the Enterprise, and the Cabal, all seem like some strange dreamlike distraction that cannot, possibly, be more real than this.

*

The _Minerva_ , the Enterprise, and the Cabal do, however, seem a lot more substantive some hours later; when, venturing out of the dim and dripping hut and into the tumultuous downpour in search of some sustenance, Jack happens to look down into the bay, and see – undeniably real, albeit pale and dreamlike through the curtaining rain – _Minerva_ herself, anchored not two hundred yards from the _Black Pearl_.


	8. impofperversity | Trochal, Chapter Eight

  


_(Sorry, D. H.)_

 

Having been at sea, now, for nearly two years, Will is accustomed to keeping out a constant weather-eye; and though he’s determinedly into his second day of avoiding his fellow man – by dint of a rowboat and an unnaturally extended 'fishing expedition' – he can tell that the approaching clouds are not the sort of clouds that one would want to be directly beneath, in an open boat; so he makes for shore, and arrives there just as the first heavy drops begin to paint the ground. He upturns the boat on the beach, and makes it onto the verandah of the Bomb & Grapnel just as the skies truly open, releasing rain so leadenly determined that it roars upon the roof.

From inside, he can hear many voices; most of the ship’s company are within, taking advantage of their Captain’s continued absence. No-one seems to know where Jack is; as it happens, no-one seems to particularly want to know, either, so long as their funds and Mr Foot’s supplies endure. But it is starting to bother Will; he is reasonably certain that Jack is with that Shaftoe character, and the longer he’s with him, the more annoyed Will is becoming about it.

After twenty minutes, it’s clear that the rain isn’t going to let up any time soon; bored, Will goes into the tavern. Candles have been lit, despite the early hour, the interior gloom having been further deepened by the downpour; the rough bar at the side of the room is lined with men, and the tables are full. Towards the back, where a wide door lets in fresh air, ricocheting raindrops and meandering chickens, he sees Joshamee Gibbs, talking with a silver-haired, red-bearded fellow; the same one whom Will saw leaving the _Pearl_ , the other morning, and then met again here in the Bomb; what was his name? Root? He makes his way over to their table, smiling in greeting.

“Mr Turner,” says Gibbs, a little thickly, waving a mug of something in Will’s direction. He looks distinctly the worse for wear. Old habits, Will reflects. “’V’ye met Mr Root, here?”

The red-bearded man, clad in shabby black, looks up, calm, appraising; not overtly friendly. “Briefly,” he says. “Would you care to join us?”

“Thank you,” says Will, and sits down on the bench beside Gibbs; who takes up a bottle and splashes some pale brown liquid into a dirty but ownerless mug, proffering it to Will. He sniffs it, but isn’t particularly inspired to ingest.

“Where’ve you been?” asks Gibbs. “Haven’t seen hide nor hair of you for a day and more, we’re losing people all over the place, by God.”

Will shrugs. “Nowhere really, fishing, exploring.”

“Thought you might be with Jack,” says Gibbs, with an affectionate leer that is certainly not missed by the dangerously perspicacious Enoch.

“No,” says Will, rather tightly; “In fact, do you gentlemen know where he’s got to?”

“Not I,” says Gibbs, at the same time as Enoch raises his chin in confirmation; Will steels himself for the answer with a mouthful of the bittersweet liquid in his mug, raising a questioning eyebrow.

“Inland,” says Enoch, not bothering to disguise his displeasure at the prospect. “I believe he’s gone in search of Mr Shaftoe.”

Although Will had been reasonably certain that this was the case, still, it’s not particularly pleasant to hear, and he takes another mouthful. He’s about to query Root further, but Mr Gibbs is poking him in the arm, appearing to be struggling to swallow a mouthful of drink rather than choke on it, judging from the bright puce his face has turned. He finally manages, and splutters, “Will, Will, did ye hear, mate, ‘bout that cove Shaftoe?”

“Hear what?” says Will, his heart speeding up, and wondering just what Mr Gibbs knows, not to mention how he knows it, since Will’s said nothing; perhaps Jack…?

“Poor blighter, d’ye know what happened to him, a year or so after he got back from the Caribbee?” There’s a deeply disturbing twinkle in Gibbs’ eye, and Enoch Root is looking unimpressed, and rather sad.

“What?” Though Will is starting to suspect that he’d rather not know.

“Had the pox, apparently; and some fool of a barber-surgeon was ‘tempting to cauterise lesions, or some such, and as if _that_ ain’t bad enough as it is, he had a bit of a slip of the hand, and… and…” Gibbs can barely speak for the bubbling mirth of it; Will’s already feeling queasy at the mention of the pox, how can Jack let himself be touched by some syphilitic horrorshow? “And, mate, he basically _cut it off_!”

Will’s mouth drops open. He’s speechless with revulsion. Oh, God, Jack… Jack, what are you _doing_? He looks to Root, for confirmation, and gets a nod.

Will takes another drink, tuning out Mr Gibbs’ further maunderings and explanations; and is surprised to find that, despite having been so angry with his Captain for the past two days, now he feels terribly sorry for him; he recalls that when he came across the two of them, Shaftoe had still been wearing breeches, though Jack had been naked. So poor Jack Sparrow probably knows none of this, and is in for a dreadful shock. And Will – he cannot hold back a small smile – Will can be there to make him feel better, after.

“I’m glad to see you can smile at our poor Half-Cocked Jack, Mr Turner,” says Enoch Root. “It’s more than your Captain could manage.”

And with that, the little light at the end of Will’s tunnel is snuffed.

“Jack… knows?”

“Yes,” says Enoch shortly. “And though I thought it might stop him from chasing after the man, apparently it’s had no such effect.”

“Ah, thash Jack,” says Gibbs sagely, blissfully unaware of the undercurrents swirling around him. “Terrifically drawn to th’unusual, you might say, in’t he, Will?”

Will feels sick. He drains his mug, and reaches past Gibbs to refill it. He has been thrown over for _that_. He cannot interpret Jack’s actions in any other light; the fact of the matter seems to be, that Jack does not care for Shaftoe’s incapacity. This, in itself, bespeaks a greater affection for the man than Will cares to acknowledge. To know this; to still go after him; to still be with him, a night and a day later…

Will knows Jack Sparrow, knows him well, possibly knows him with a more impartial accuracy than Jack knows himself. He knows that Jack could not possibly be toying, in this situation. Jack is serious about this. Jack means it. Jack would not trifle with the emotions of a man who’s been through what Shaftoe has been through; he wouldn’t be so cruel.

_Though he’s been so cruel to me,_ thinks Will querulously; before subsiding into the honest acknowledgement that Jack has never promised, or implied, or sought anything from him; has only ever been gracious and blithely accommodating about the many things that Will has wanted. And there it is again: Jack, who has never actively sought out Will’s affections, has run up a mountain after this man.

The young man rubs a hand, tiredly, over his eyes, as the room starts to blur hazily around the edges. Mr Gibbs rests his head, just briefly mind, on the sticky tabletop; presently, he begins to snore gently. Enoch Root refills Will’s mug, and Will thanks him for it, drinks up.

“Tell me,” says Enoch, kindly, “why it bothers you so that your Captain’s seeking out our Mr Shaftoe?” And Will Turner is too young, and hurt, and nearly too drunk, to see the barely concealed machinations and manipulations that curl and lurk beneath the question.

“He means it, you know,” says Will, sadly. “I think he means it.”

“Means what?”

“Means to have Jack Shaftoe for his own, and keep him, as he didn’t want me; and I’ll have to sit and watch it, all the way home, all the long, long way home, and know that it’ll never be mine.”

“Ah, how can you be so sure?” murmurs Enoch, thoughtfully topping up Will’s drink yet again. “Surely, a fine-looking young man such as yourself might be… a preferable alternative?”

Will, bleary, looks up at this odd man, who seems to know more than he should about the whole affair, but seems to be very sympathetic for all that. “I’ve only ever been a warm body on the cold sea,” he says, maudlin and mawkish with it all. “He wouldn’t chase up a mountain for me, Mr Root, even as I am; and certainly not if I were Half-Cocked. Jack Shaftoe is… different, I fear.”

At that, the smallest of smiles hovers at the corner of Enoch’s narrow lips. “That he is, Mr Turner, indubitably so. But pray tell, what gives you to suspect that Jack Shaftoe would be joining the company of the _Black Pearl_?”

“Well,” says Will, as if it’s perfectly obvious, “Jack isn’t going to leave his _Pearl_ , is he? Never in a thousand years, never in a hundred thousand; and he isn’t going to let go of Jack Shaftoe either, I’m sure of it, and so that’s that, isn’t it, Mr Root.”

And then he jumps a little, as the front door slams open, revealing a crush of men who are greeted with cries of delight from the Sultan – “Captain van Hoek! Moseh! Boys!” – and so does not hear Enoch’s low comment of “Not lightly, perhaps; but he _will_ let go, you may lay on that.”

*

It’s natural, perhaps, given his current pre-occupation with the name, that the sibilant and breathy syllables of _Shaftoe_ come easily to Will’s ears, out of the hubbub and noise of the tavern; and just as natural, given their genetic dispositions, that Jimmy and Danny Shaftoe are quickly selected by his eyes as the owners of those syllables. Up by the bar, in a back-slapping throng of new customers, stand two tall, red-blond, blue-eyed men, around Will’s own age; they wear the simple canvas breeches of sea-going men, and rather Oriental, but nonetheless piratical, open vests in lieu of shirts; one has hair no more than chin length, tucked behind his ears, the other a queue like his father’s; both have the square jaw, the bright and vivid gaze of Jack Shaftoe.

Will turns to ask Enoch Root about them, but finds himself alone with the noisily somnolent Gibbs. His bottle is empty. He stands, and steadies himself briefly against the table, before making his weaving way t’ward the bar. It’s several bodies deep; he stands close by the Shaftoe boys, eavesdropping shamelessly.

“ – hellhole of a playace, Batavia,” says the short-haired one.

“Full of fookin’ Dutchmen, eh Jimmy,” says the other, and they laugh, and get a narrow-eyed look from a short, rubicund fellow. They’re Irish, by the sound of it, which is odd, because Jack Shaftoe has no such accent.

The man in front has completed his transaction, and squeezes away; Will, and simultaneously Jimmy, try to take his place, and crash into one another.

“Bloody Shaftoe,” snaps Will, without a single synapse in his brain firing in preparation for the remark, and he pushes ahead regardless.

The brothers exchange a Glance, and Will finds himself tapped, pointedly, on both shoulders at once. He turns, and twists, and ends up with his back against the rough wood of the countertop, four bright eyes pinning him there.

“Who’re you?” says one; and the other continues, “And what’s your gayame?”; and the first resumes, “And are you calling us out, friend?”

Will at least retains the sense to realise that this last option is probably an inadvisable one. He shakes his head, and then pushes the long curls back off his face. “Will Turner,” he says, with careful politeness. “Of the _Black Pearl_. And no, I’ve no quarrel with you. Not… not with you.”

The short-haired one grins at that, a dimple appearing high on one cheekbone. “Ah, me and Danny here, we know what that means, so we do. Means you’ve met our Da, and he’s pushed your buttons. Got a talent for that, he has. Jimmy Shaftoe; pleased t’ meet ye, Mr Will Turner.” He offers a broad, dirty hand, though there’s little room in the crush, and Will takes it. The other brother does the same, saying, “Danny; so what’s he done, eh, ol’ Jack?”

Will just shakes his head. “I’d rather not go into it,” he says, with drunken formality. “But would you gentlemen care to join me in a drink, by way of apology for my rudeness?”

“My oath, we’re ready to kill for one,” says Danny happily, and he reaches a long arm past Will’s shoulder, and shouts terribly loudly and very close to Will’s ear, “Oi! Footsie! Anyone’d think we weren’t yer best customers! Get on over here!” His breath is hot on the side of Will’s face, and Will feels goosebumps prickle over his neck. Bloody Shaftoes.

*

Several hours later, William Turner’s two new best friends seem to’ve persuaded him that perhaps all Shaftoes aren’t inherently bad, or invariably bloody. These two, at least, seem to be highly amusing; they’re loud, and full of ridiculous stories, and constantly trying to outdo one another for the attention of their wide-eyed and smiling companion. The storm has not let up; the Bomb descends slowly into a roaring, crepuscular fug, oddly homely to all these displaced men.

Jimmy and Danny, Will learns, are just as displaced as he is; and they’ve many astonishing traveller’s tales to share with him. They’re thoroughly disreputable, that much is clear, but Will’s become accustomed to that in most of the people he meets day to day. Their claims of martial prowess are more excessive than he can believe, and if he weren’t quite so drunk, he’d be tempted to call them on it, and show them a thing or two of what he can do; as it is, he contents himself with cheerful boasting. The conversation, having temporarily exhausted the topic of physical combat, takes a brief detour through religion (though thoroughly lapsed, the Shaftoe boys retain a hopelessly Papist streak), and then swerves drunkenly towards those things which, while certainly nothing to do with Religion, are equally Inexplicable.

“I’ve seen that, you know,” insists Will, leaning conspiratorially across the small round table. “Dead men, who walk still. Seen it with my own eyes. And I must say they’re damned hard to kill.”

“What bollocks!” cries Danny. “You’re talking a load of shite there, Will.”

“’M not! I swear!” Will protests. “Skettle – sklet – skel-e-tal, they were, but only in the moonlight.”

Jimmy finds this enormously funny; Danny is disapproving of such phant’sies, and starts to argue, but Will cuts him off. “You can ask Jack, my Captain, it happened to him, and I saw it all, true as I sit here.”

“Which one’s your Captain, then?” demands Danny, staring round the rather unprepossessing selection of the _Pearl_ ’s company. Will goes rather still, and looks down at the table.

“He’s not here, at the moment.”

“Well, where is he so?”

“With your bloody father,” says Will, and a horrible frown descends upon him.

”And what’s wrong with that?” cries Danny; who, despite having originally chased his father half way round the globe with the simple intention of beating the bejaysus out of him, has since developed a certain affection for his iconoclastic parent.

Will looks at the brothers consideringly. He has no idea of just how they would react to the suspected state of play between their father and Jack Sparrow. It’s possible they wouldn’t give a damn. It’s also possible, since they are Papists at the core, and since (surely) Half-Cocked Jack can’t be particularly given to this type of activity, that they would be shocked and angry. And while he’s not particularly keen for them to be shocked and angry at _him_ , he can’t deny a frisson of delight at the idea of making them feel that way about their father.

“Aye,” chimes in Jimmy, impatient with Will’s silence. “What’s wrong with that?”

Four very blue eyes are fixed on Will again, and he can’t help wondering whether Jack Shaftoe’s eyes are as bright and fiery, when all his attention is on one. These blue Shaftoe eyes are as warming as Jack Sparrow’s coal-black gaze, in their own way. Suddenly, Will’s head is swarming with all sorts of creatively vengeful thoughts. All sorts.

“Jack,” he says, “Jack Sparrow, that is, my Captain… he was mine. And now he’s chosen your father over me.” He stares, challengingly, at the brothers, heart hammering, some part of him readying himself for fight, which seems entirely on the cards. But they’re just looking rather quizzical; until finally Jimmy’s eyebrows fly upwards, and his jaw drops downwards, and he starts laughing again, and poking Danny in the ribs with his elbow. “Oh, Dan, he thinks… he thinks Dad’s fookin’ ‘is Captain!” He’s overcome with howls of laughter, and leans back in his chair, shaking.

Danny grins and scowls at the same time. He points a finger at Will.

“Mr Turner,” he says, “You’re much mistaken; firstly, because our Dad is the _very_ well-known Half-Cocked Jack, and cain’t do any such thing; and secondly, because our Dad ain’t any sort of catamite.”

Will shrugs, glad he’s not going to have to fight it out, because he’s really feeling a little too blurry to do that with his habitual aplomb. “Think what you please, gentlemen,” he says. “You’ll find out, sooner or later. But there you have it; that’s why I’m not particularly enthused about your father.”

Jimmy’s stopped laughing, as he starts to look at Will’s revelation from another angle. “So… you’re saying that you… and your Captain…” He looks at Will with new eyes; Will stares back, holding his chin high. A year ago, he could not have admitted this with such candour; but in the time since, he’s learnt to be proud of the jealousy he’s seen engendered in men, and in women, when they realise that he and Jack Sparrow are lovers; and they never have to know how occasional, or one-sided, it is. That’s not the thing that Will is proud of, at all. But he is proud to have had a man as unique as Jack at his side and in his bed, albeit briefly, and he doesn’t want to hide it.

“Yes,” he says, and he wants to say this in a cool and nonchalant manner; but because he’s both proud and drunk, his blood is hopelessly eloquent, and explains his true feelings by flooding his face and throat with warm colour.

“Oh,” says Jimmy. He exchanges an untranslatable fraternal glance with Danny, and then shrugs, and says, “It’s all possible, I s’pose; he’s a mad bastard, we’ll give him that, and not so easy predicted, you might say.”

Will waves a vague hand in acknowledgement of their acceptance of his claim, and says, “So you see, I fully understand why your father has taken up with Jack. But what I cannot, for the life of me, fathom, is: what on _earth_ your under-equipped Dad has to offer, that I do not.”

He knows, as he says it, that he is being every bit as cunningly, disingenuously manipulative as his dear Jack can be, and reflects that he has learnt well. Because he could have predicted, with the utmost certainty, that the response would be as it is; a grinning chorus of, “He’s a Shaftoe, mate.”

Will smiles, but allows a frown of confusion to linger. He leans forward, resting his chin on the palm of one hand, all big brown eyes and flushed skin. “What’s that?” he asks, quiet, as if he expects the answer to be utterly revelatory. “What’s so special about a Shaftoe?”

The fraternal glancing reaches epidemic proportions, and is joined by fraternal nudging, and a certain amount of wriggling.

“Well,” says Danny, “besides the obvious, being that we’re powerful handsome fellows”; they preen mockingly; “we’ve travelled through the Orient, we have.”

“Aye,” adds Jimmy, with a grin, “me and Danny here, we’ve been the chosen consorts of the Malabari Pirate Queen, we have; there ain’t a lot we don’t know.”

“What,” says Will, wide-eyed, “ _both_ of you?”

The brothers’ grins are sheepish and proud all at once.

“ _At the same time?_ ” insists Will, as though most delightfully scandalised, but somewhere deep inside, feeling a building throb. Where Danny’s bright-but-ragged vest falls open on his chest, Will can see a building flush, just like the one he feels beneath his own skin.

“Shaftoes,” says Danny, “Inventive, we are.”

“Inventive enough for a pirate queen, mayhap,” says Will, boldly; and he leans back in his chair, stretching long arms behind his head, letting them see all the length and strength of him, before tipping back suddenly onto the table, and grinning up at them from beneath his lashes, while a long finger traces patterns in the spilled liquid that glimmers in the candlelight; and he mutters, “But are you inventive enough for a pirate?”

Jimmy laughs, uncertainly; but Danny, a slow smile on his face, leans forward, and beckons his brother with him; the two of them, alike enough to be twins, breathe out hot sweet breath that makes Will shiver, and he closes his eyes for a moment, trying to stop his swirling head from showing it, trying not to bite his lip; instead, deliberate, he licks it. And opens his eyes to stares that, yes, are every bit as heated as Jack Sparrow’s.

“We’ll try anything, us,” says Danny; and Jimmy, his smile finally quenched, says with an odd fierceness, “D’you think yourself, then, inventive enough for not one, but two Shaftoes?”

“I’ve no idea,” says Will, with a languid look that says he has, on the contrary, every confidence of it; “Would it not be up to your good selves, to be the judge of that?”

And this time, there are no looks of query, or confirmation. “Yes,” says Danny, “it will be.”

*

In the close blackness of the longhouse, Will floats blind, deafened by the roar of the rain above him; held in the world only by the hot hands which peel away his cold soaked clothes, and begin to explore his chilled skin. Shaftoes, it seems, generate heat in the way that the sun generates light, and Will can feel them, fore and aft, though they do not touch him yet, and their proximity warms his own skin from inside and out. Hands are sliding down his back, coming to rest on his waist, as a soft-bearded chin pushes his hair from his neck, and a burning wet mouth comes to rest on the top of his spine, sending a shiver all down it; in front of him, another mouth hovers, and he knows it’s there from the warmth of the breath upon his face, and he wants to reach out, but at the same time, there’s a beautiful power, a powerful beauty, in doing nothing, nothing, and letting them come to him.

Fingers, that tremble oh so slightly, splay across his throat, and slide down his chest; another callused hand, smelling still of tar and wood, is laid along his cheek, and tilts his face, and the mouth is so very, very close and warm _oh Lord please just kiss me_ and when it does, Will takes in a great breath as his heart, it seems, wants to climb into his mouth with this seeking tongue; the tongue on the back of his neck is no less delicious, and it makes his whole body want to undulate, and he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, fists clenching, hips wanting already to move; he reaches blindly behind, till his hand finds warm flesh, and pulls the body t’ward himself, and groans into the kiss of the other when it comes into hot and thudding contact with his back, a hard cock pushing against him, and the fingers on his waist dig hard into him.

The one in front feels the movement, the shudder, and smiles into his kiss, and the hand leaves his chest and briefly, deliciously, holds his heavy cock upright against his belly; and then another throbbingly warm body is pushing against him, hard thighs against his own, hard cock against his own, hard chest against his own, hard mouth against his own, and he can barely breathe from the pressure of the two of them, but breath seems the least of the things that are filling him with life right now; one mouth is licking a trail of sparks round his neck, and up to his ear, where it mutters, “So, pretty pirate, are you ready to find out what’s so special about a Shaftoe?”

And Will’s never been readier for anything in his life.


	9. impofperversity | Trochal, Chapter Nine

  


Sunlight, cool and bright, is angling through the cracks around the door of the hut when Jack Sparrow wakes. He’s lying on a pile of his own clothing, on the muddy floor; and ‘muddy’, after the downpour of the previous afternoon and night, is definitely the operative word. The leafy roof above him is lively with rustling, and tiny golden motes drift down from it, through the fine blades of invading sunshine. His left arm appears to have been removed from the rest of his body, if he goes by sensation alone; that is to say, he can’t feel it at all; but a glance confirms that it’s still there, merely numbed by Jack Shaftoe’s heavy head.

Jack closes his eyes again, and lets a smile wash over him. It’s been a long, long, long time since he’s woken up to the warm, sleepy joy of Jack Shaftoe. In fact… yes, he can recall it, exactly, that last time; and can recall the way he woke Shaftoe up, teasing him into wakefulness and then refusing to take things to their natural conclusion. Lord, what a waste! How dreadfully stupid he was, when young – how foolish was his assumption that things would always be right there, and he could wait as long as he wanted. If only he’d known, then, that that bright morning would be the last time he would ever, ever wake to Shaftoe, Whole and Complete.

It hurts, to’ve lost such a thing. That’s undeniable. And yet – hasn’t he got much more (so very much more) today than he did even three days ago? Hasn’t he, by some miracle, got what might be described as a Very High Proportion of Jack Shaftoe back beside him?

This thought brings a smile to his face, and satisfies him briefly, but only briefly, before he recalls their conversation of the night before. He’d spent a long, sleepy, lazy afternoon and evening listening, over the roar of the rain, to Shaftoe’s lovely hoarse voice regaling him with tales of the past two decades; tales that were embroidered and exaggerated and deliciously embellished (and Jack’s enjoyment of them was all the more for the recognition of this, and of Shaftoe’s prowess as a fellow fabulist); but eventually, as the blackness of night deepened, and the tales came closer and closer to the here and now, both of them could feel the sucking pressure of reality returning; it could not – cannot – be ignored: this very real fact that they are each bent upon their own journey and destination, and that these are horridly irreconcilable.

Jack understands that Shaftoe has been working for years towards the end of this Enterprise of his; and he understands that Shaftoe wants to provide something for his boys (Lord, Jack still shakes his head at the thought of Jack Shaftoe as father-figure, and can’t wait to encounter these offspring, who – in Shaftoe’s tales at any rate – are paragons of courage and filial devotion, and amusing to boot – goodness, perhaps he should introduce them to William, as a distraction?) and he understands that Shaftoe has committed himself to this Cabal of men who kept him alive when he was quite mad and so very close to death on that slave galley (where Shaftoe has admitted, to Jack’s delight, that he spend many of his most disconnected hours immersed in a memory-world that featured Jack’s good self rather prominently and intimately); he understands all that, and admires him for it; and yet still wishes, with all his heart, that he could persuade Shaftoe to do otherwise.

Shaftoe sighs deeply in his sleep and turns his head; some blood manages to squeeze its way down Jack’s outflung arm, and it tingles and hurts. Talking of which, so does his chest. He lifts his head, careful not to shift enough to wake Shaftoe, and peers down; the area around his nipple is a little red, and he can feel the pulse in it; but it’s not looking _nasty_. Jack’s a dab hand at spotting an incoming infection; he’s done enough Interfering with his body to see it a mile off. This looks fine.

Shaftoe’s arm lies solidly across Jack’s belly, fingers curving protectively around Jack’s waist. The size of that hand, its strong fingers, the knuckles, the blond hairs; Jack itches to bring it to his mouth, to lick and suck it, and feel it flex and move in response; but that would wake its owner.

Though Jack’s bladder says he’ll have to wake him soon, especially with the pressure of that arm.

Jack wants to laugh as he thinks of himself, lying here with a dead arm, a throbbing chest, and a stabbingly unpleasant urge to piss, and yet not moving an inch because he doesn’t want to deprive Jack Shaftoe of happy sleep. This is a sad pass he’s come to; he’s like a lovesick youth, prostrating himself before the needs of some quixotic princess. Christ afloat, is there anything he _wouldn’t_ do for Jack Shaftoe?

Well, apparently he won’t cross the Pacific for him.

That thought makes Jack’s blood cold. He’s heard tales, horrid tales. And yet not a _lot_ of tales; most ships that set out on that journey leave none alive for tale-telling. The tales that do return are of slow, maddening starvation or (which some say is worse) of agonizing expiry from lack of water; and of scurvy and madness and mutiny and corpses. Of endless ocean, punctuated infrequently by tiny teardrop islands full of cannibalistic savages, places where landing is death, and not landing is death.

How can Shaftoe be taking this on, _now_? Now, when after twenty years, they have suddenly been given everything to live for?

It must mean more than everything to him.

The _Pearl_ could do it, Jack tells himself. Certainly we could do it.

But I would be condemning half my crew to death, to indulge my own obsession. And Jack might not survive. And I might not survive. And we would spend months and months on separate ships, half lost and half dead on that uncharted desert of an ocean.

It can’t be done.

It must be done.

It can’t be done.

He has to change Shaftoe’s mind.

Ah, now this is a more pleasant tack for his imagination to take. Jack closes his eyes, and lets all the images, which have been accumulating happily in the back of his head, wash to the forefront; all the ways in which he can try to change Shaftoe’s mind. There they are, the two of them in his warm dark cabin, and Shaftoe in lanternlight is gilded and shadowed, all strength and mystery, at once unknown and open to being known; and Jack imagines the look that he will bring to Shaftoe’s face, and the sweet moment when Shaftoe’s smile falls away into greed and wonderment and he clutches at Jack and pulls him close… and Jack will hear Shaftoe mutter into his ear, “I won’t go, Jack, it would be madness; I’m with you, mate, and oh Christ, do that again…”

As if he can see into Jack’s head, Shaftoe groans, and tenses, and his hand on Jack’s waist stretches and splays and then grips, hard; he holds in a big breath, then sighs it out, and rubs his face against Jack’s arm, surrendering to wakefulness.

Oh, thank God, thinks Jack, and he plants a quick kiss, then reclaims his useless limb, and jumps up, and runs outside to relieve himself; where, cruelly, he then has to stand, hopping from foot to foot, for several seemingly endless minutes while he waits for the result of his imaginings to deflate, and allow him to achieve his rather desperately desired goal.

“What took you so long?” says Shaftoe, grinning, when he returns.

“Your fault,” says Jack, standing above the rather wretched pile of crushed and muddied clothes that are all that remains of his former sartorial splendour; it would aggrieve him to see such a thing, if the pile weren’t topped off by Jack Shaftoe, lying back propped up on his elbows, squinting in the sunlight pouring through the open door. “So,” he continues, “are we going back down, to meet your companions, and your offspring, and tell them that you’re not going with them after all, having been the lucky recipient of a Far Better Offer?”

He says this with a jaunty grin, but Shaftoe unfortunately doesn’t seem to find it amusing.

“We’re going back down,” he says; which clarifies his position on only one of the propositions that Jack has put to him.

“Ah, don’t be that way,” chides Jack, who’s trying to resist being that way – viz., disgruntled and bad-tempered in order to avoid being miserable – himself. He straddles Shaftoe, kneeling astride his narrow hips, and leans down to kiss him. Shaftoe’s lips are plump and warm with sleep; his mouth, when Jack gently opens his own, is stale and yet, to Jack, none the less delicious for it. Just-woken Shaftoe is yeasty, and edible, and very _animal_ in the oddest way; and Shaftoe (unlike some pretty girl, who in this circumstance’d be more likely to pull a face, and push him away, and proclaim him bad-smelling and grubby) seems similarly enthused about Jack himself; he opens his mouth wide, admitting and conversely seeking, and lets out a satisfied grunt. Jack wriggles atop Shaftoe’s hips. He can feel _something_ there… he still, despite his claims of intent, hasn’t explored properly. He wants to, very badly. But not here, in this muck and dirt. Jack Shaftoe should have so much more than this.

(Jack frowns slightly, at the faint realisation that he is doing exactly as he had earlier berated himself for doing; delaying pleasures, on the assumption that they will be able to be indulged later; perhaps, he should…? But no, not here. Not now. And not when it is the strongest card in his hand.)

“Listen, Jack,” he mutters, rubbing his face against Shaftoe’s ear, tangled straw-coloured hair tickling his nose, “don’t let’s talk of it now; for surely, there’s no informed decision to be made yet, when I’ve not even had the inestimable pleasure of making you mine, as I was once yours. Let’s ignore it, till that time comes when we’ve all necessary information at our fingertips; and then, _then_ , we can determine the best course, eh?”

And Jack Shaftoe, who never is keen to face up to an awkward decision till it becomes a pressing inevitability (at which time, instinct and the Imp will surely come to his aid and steer him in _some_ direction, though it might not be at all what most would consider the _right_ direction) grins at the shivers that Jack’s close voice sends down his spine, and says, “Alright, then; I can certainly appreciate the logic of that approach; so shall we away, Captain Sparrow?”

“Oh, yes,” says Jack, “most definitely; any minute now, Jack, any minute now…” But his actions belie his words, as his greedy mouth roams across Shaftoe’s face, licking the line of his eyebrows, hovering over the delicate skin of an eyelid, holding there to savour the deliciously odd sensation of Shaftoe’s blueblue eye sliding beneath it. Shaftoe tastes sweaty and somnolent and like someone who’s been sleeping in the forest, close to the mud; he tastes like someone who is comfortably ensconced in his animal skin; he tastes, in the purest of ways, of his body, and of his own warm physical presence, and it is a taste that makes Jack instantly want to push and grab and roll and suck and be naked and be close and wriggle free from all the pretty shackles of civilisation; he groans with it and fastens his mouth again on Jack Shaftoe’s, pushing him down on the dirty pile of clothing-cum-bedding, and Shaftoe’s arms wind round him, pulling him close, till they both wince (and Jack squeaks – just a little, mind) as their chests come into contact.

“Sorry,” mutters Shaftoe, smiling, and clearly not.

“Whose stupid fucking idea was that, anyway?” pouts Jack, who really, really would like to do more of the rolling-around-on-top-of-one-another thing, but has to acknowledge that given the level of filth, not to mention subsequent discomfort, it’s probably not advisable.

“Would I have thought of it if you hadn’t done it once already?” counters Shaftoe, and Jack has to concede this point.

“Oh, come on then, it’s all my fault; so let me take you away from all this,” he says, gesturing expansively at their rather insalubrious surroundings, “and get you somewhere where a) I have enough rum that this tiny modicum of pain will go entirely unremarked, and b) you won’t get covered in mud when I insist on rolling around with you like a maddened beast, and c)…” He pauses for small, slow, gentle kisses, trying to calm his blood. “And c)… where I can slowly, and deliciously, do all the things I’ve wanted to do to you for longer than I care to admit.”

“Alright…” says Shaftoe, and he stretches, rather beautifully Jack thinks, and pushes Jack off himself with a grin, jumping up; he takes up his great sword from the corner of the hovel and straps it to his back. “Let’s go.” And he chucks Jack ‘neath his chin, and saunters off, leaving Jack to pluck his abused clothing from the mud, cursing Vagabonds and their savage ways, and their ridiculously excessive interpretation of the phrase, 'travelling light'.

*

As they make their way along the overgrown pathway down the mountain (having paused briefly to pass on their thanks and farewells to Dasig and his tribe, and collect Datuk, who scampers ahead of them like a small brown two-legged goat) Jack is in a happy daze, planning his evening; while it can’t exactly be described as a plan for seduction, since he’s reasonably certain that Shaftoe will inflict (if not pain) at least misery upon him if he _doesn’t_ deliver, he doesn’t see that as any good reason to skimp on those elements that should be present in any good inveiglement. Because Shaftoe deserves no less. Not to mention Jack himself.

And because… because it might be the one and only and last and final time. Because, if Shaftoe insists on his Pacific crossing, Jack has no confidence that they will ever see one another again.

Shaftoe pulls Jack away from the cliff-edge of these maudlin thoughts, with a slap to his arse (thoroughly buried under the layers of clothing which Jack has – in light of the heat, and of their particularly unpleasant state – tied around his waist, rather than suffer them on his person; he wears only boots, breeches and tricorne, but his shirt and coat create a great swaying bustle, a bustle whose weight gives him an urge to swing his hips just a little more than usual as he walks, to feel the heavy fabric swirling around him) and a request for a tale, to pass the time: “For didn’t I talk myself hoarse for you, last night, you lazy ingrate? Surely, in all those years at sea, you must have done _something_ that’s worth talking about?”

“Nah, not really,” says Jack. “Only the usual; narrow escapes from death, mutinies, maroonings, terrific battles and astonishing victories, exploring mysterious islands, discovering treasure hoards and secret places, seeing magic and mystery and vodoun; typical pirate stuff really, far too boring for a Vagabond to listen to.”

“Magic and mystery,” scoffs Shaftoe behind him. “Alchemy, prestidigitation and lies, more like; you’ll see more magic in the hands of pickpockets on a busy day at Tyburn than in anything a so-called practitioner of the Black Arts will produce.”

“Oh, Jack, you couldn’t be more mistaken, mate; I’ve seen it, and been it, and there ain’t no lie involved; I should tell you, should I not, of the lamentable fate of our erstwhile colleague, Hector Barbossa… may his rotting soul live on endlessly in the blackest halls of hell…”

“You said you’d killed him?”

“Aye, though he was all but dead to start with; it’s a long story, Jack, but it starts some five or six years after you left me, when—“

“I did _not_ leave _you_ , I left your soggy corpse at the bottom of the ocean, which really isn’t the same thing.”

“Alright, five or six years after you left my soggy corpse et cetera; if I may continue, without interruption, for just a few moments… we happened upon a _ow, what the fuck?_ ” There’s a sudden prick of pain in Jack’s shoulderblade; and then a far more _determined_ pain as the full weight of Jack Shaftoe strikes him from behind, pushing him flat and face down on the forest floor, and Shaftoe is shouting, “Just breathe, don’t do anything else, just breathe and don’t stop”: which seems like a superfluous exhortation, if not simply foolish, until Jack tries to actually do it, and then he discovers that it is, in fact, a rather serious challenge.

*

Jack Shaftoe thanks all and any deities that may be present for the ridiculously magnetic sway of Sparrow’s walk, and the delicious movement of the muscles of his back as he… _promenades_ in front of Jack; because it means that Jack has not taken his eyes off that beautiful bronzed form, would rather in fact trip over a tree root and break a bone than miss one single moment of its deliberately provocative progression; and he therefore sees the exact moment when the tiny feathered dart strikes, and reacts even before Sparrow does; he throws himself forward, pushing the pirate down, and pulling out the projectile at the same moment.

And he’s reasonably certain, reasonably horribly certain, of what it is; has spent enough time up here with the hill tribes to know what needs to be done. He’s lying on top of Jack Sparrow’s prone form, and he knows that isn’t helping with the breathing issue, but he has to cover as much of the man’s vulnerable skin as he can, even if that means doing so with his own; now that they are lying in the undergrowth, though, it will be hard for the unseen marksman to find his target.

The point at which the dart struck is already purpling, raising. “Breathe!” cries Jack, again, and then fastens his mouth around the small wound, and sucks for all he’s worth. Bitter blood fills his mouth, and he spits it out, and does it again; Sparrow’s breath is harsh, and whooping, and he lies otherwise still, which is just what Jack wanted him to do, since movement will only encourage the pumping of poisoned blood; but Jack suspects that it’s also rather hard for him to move, right now, since merely drawing breath seems to be the most that he can achieve under the sudden influence of this paralytic.

Jack sucks again, and then draws back to look, but the purpling is spreading, its diameter now close to an inch. He swears and wriggles down, fumbling inside Sparrow’s boot for the dagger he knows was always hidden there; and swears again in relief as he discovers that the pirate has not changed this habit. He takes the knife, and says, “Sorry, Jack, but must be done”; then incises a swift circle around the entrance wound, a circle which wells up darkly, and Jack is most relieved when Sparrow lets out an indignant growl of pain; he then cuts a small cross over the exact point where the dart hit, and opens his mouth wide, to cover all the cut flesh, and sucks, and sucks, and sucks; he turns his head no more than absolutely necessary, to spit it out, and Jack Sparrow’s shoulder is covered in a dark sliding fall of blood.

Jack looks again, and the purple has spread no further; and Sparrow’s breathing has not ceased; and he sucks again, and again, until the blood on his tongue tastes of the sea, and not some bitter root. Only then does he say, his heart pounding with fear, “Jack, are you alright? Can you breathe? Can you move?”

“Yes,” says Jack Sparrow, though rather faintly; “And yes; and no, because there’s a fucking great Vagabond lying on top of me, but I think I’ll forgive him for’t, as he clearly just saved my life.”

Jack rests his forehead on Sparrow’s shoulder, swamped with relief; but he allows himself only a moment, and then says, “Stay down here; Datuk,” (the child is standing a few feet down the path, eyes wide with fright; but standing nonetheless, and therefore clearly not a target) “help Jack with his clothes; Jack, put ‘em all on, but don’t stand till you’re covered, and pull up your collar, and then go, fast as you can; I’ll be right behind you.” And he jumps to his feet, and draws his sword with a snicking ring, and turns back to the forest, to the direction from whence it came.

“Get back here, fool,” calls Sparrow, “what if you’re hit next?”

“They fired _past_ me, to you,” Jack calls over his shoulder; he doesn’t actually expect to find anyone, but the fact that he’s running after them will at the very least distract them from firing on Sparrow again. And now that he’s crashing through the forest with his sword in his hand, the fear is being pushed out of his body and being replaced by a raging anger – what in hell was that about? What has Jack Sparrow ever done to these damn people? And Jesus, Jesus, what if… what if…?

He leaves the path, hacking and slashing ahead of himself, and roaring threats of horrible retribution; all pleasingly dramatick, but entirely useless as an actual hunting tactic. But he hasn’t got time to hunt. He has to get Sparrow out of this bloody jungle. After five minutes’ acting the enraged maniac, he cuts back toward the trail, and soon catches up with his companions. Sparrow is moving rather slowly; Jack’s about to tell him to stop dawdling and shift his lazy bones, when he realizes that, tucked inside his coat, curved about him like some baby marsupial, is Datuk; Sparrow has insisted on covering the child, also, and is staggering slightly under the combined burthen of a seven year old boy and the residual poison in his system. Jack catches up, and sheathes his sword.

“Here, give ‘im to me,” he pants, holding out his arms for the infant.

“You’ve nothing to cover him with,” says Sparrow. “In fact, Jack, you’ve nothing to cover your _self_ with; run, will you, and we’ll be right behind you.”

”They’re not after me, or the boy. If they were, we’d be down already. Give him to me, and we’ll all move faster,” insists Jack, and he grabs Datuk, holding the child on one hip, and throws his other arm around Sparrow for support; “Come on, not far till we’re in the open, the padi fields aren’t far ahead.”

“Have it your way,” says Sparrow, but he moves faster without Datuk, and after a few minutes Jack thinks he can probably manage a run, which he does; and they make the safety of the open fields with no further difficulty, and slow to a walk. Jack puts Datuk on his feet, and the child skitters ahead, still nervous.

“So,” says Sparrow, turning the collar of his filthy coat back down, and squinting up at the sun, “It appears I’ve made my first mortal enemy on Queena-Kootah. Three days, that’s not bad going, ‘specially since I’ve really not even been trying. Thought I’d behaved rather well, actually; your presence quite distracted me from trying to interfere with their women, or fight with their men, or steal their treasured… treasures, whatever they may be; and yet, Jack, someone still felt the world would be improved by my departure.”

“It’s unexpected,” admits Jack. “They’ve been most friendly, recently.”

“What about all the unrest? Perhaps this was a – a – a political assassination?” says Sparrow, regaining some of his _joie d’exagération_.

“What unrest? I’ll have you know I’ve done very effective Community Liaison,” says Jack, rather distractedly scanning the middle distance for hashshashin, “and the locals are positively quiescent these days.”

“That’s not what Enoch Root told me,” says Jack.

“What? When?”

“When he came aboard the _Pearl_ , before I even set foot ashore, and asked me politely to fuck off out of the East Indies.”

“What? Why?” says Jack, his attention fully recaptured by this revelation.

“Well, Mr Root and I have a long, though irregular, association, in which he’s shared many interesting pieces of information with me, some of which have even led to beneficial discoveries (though more have led to narrowly averted disasters, if I’m honest with you); and he came aboard to share yet another pearl of wisdom, being that this island is supposedly in the grip of dreadful Civil Turmoil, and should be avoided at all costs.”

“What a load of crap,” summarises Jack.

“And d’ye know what else?” cries Sparrow, thinking his way further through it, becoming irritable, and waving a finger in the general direction of the harbour, “He knew all about you and I and our past associations, Jack. Oh, but you must have told him of it… but no, for he didn’t think me dead, he knew me to be very much alive, and – “

“I told no-one,” insists Jack. “Not one single soul, not any of it.”

Sparrow stops walking, standing ankle-deep in the thin mud of the padi field, and says, slowly; “So, Enoch Root knew you and I were once lovers…”

The word makes Jack blush, even now.

“And if he did not receive this intelligence from you, then he received it from some other member of the _Pearl_ ’s company, since I know it wasn’t myself; and Lord, Jack, if he had it from Barbossa then it’s possible that he even knew that you thought me dead…”

“And yet he had dealings with you, and knew you to be alive,” says Jack, continuing this train of thought.

“But he did not tell you so.”

“We merely speculate on his source, Jack; but whether or not that’s the case, still he didn’t want you to meet me.”

“But I did, I did, eh mate? And you… came to me,” and here Sparrow can’t stop a grin, which proves to be briefly and deliciously contagious, until Jack continues this rather unpleasant chain of logic, with:

“And when he learned of it, or at least of your searching for me, he told you of my Unfortunate Incident, a revelation which he doubtless understood to be against my wishes – "

“ – he said as much – "

“And Enoch,” says Jack, with growing anger, “does nothing – nothing, Jack – without an expectation of the probable consequences.”

“But surely he wouldn’t…”

“Come on,” says Jack, and strides on through the tepid mud. “We need to have a conversation with our local Alchemist.”


	10. impofperversity | Trochal, Chapter Ten

  


Can there be, has there ever been, a more delicious awakening than one which is accompanied by the warm, slow-breathing embrace of another body?

Yes, Will thinks, yes there can be, though I never knew of it till now; it’s even better with two. He smiles wide and slow, eyes not even open yet, but heart filling and expanding as he revels in the enfolding heat of Danny and Jimmy, sprawled on either side of him, their breaths still deep and calm with sleep, and then that same heart fills and expands further as the memories of the previous night pour into his awareness, sweet and thick and slow as treacle, and just as dark and curling and (ultimately) sticky.

Will feels heat building in his face as he recalls it, what he did, what he let them do to him; the three of them wild and free and unbound, one taking another step forward and the others following eagerly, and then taking another leap ahead; a trio of open wanton souls spiralling one another down into some dark honeyed place in which a strange, and wonderfully absolute, pleasure lurked.

He can recall the feel of their hands, their skin, their mouths beneath his; but finds it harder to envisage them, it having been so very blindly black. He can tell as he lies here, with one brother’s back against his spine (that must be Jimmy; Danny’s long hair falls over Will’s outstretched left arm) that the other’s face is inches from his own. The low regular breaths against his cheek are testament. He opens his eyes, slowly.

Danny Shaftoe is not a bad sight to wake up to. His hair, like Will’s own, lost its leather restraint early on in last night’s bacchanalia, and Will’s arm, which is also acting as Danny’s pillow, is hidden under a blanket of strawberry blond tangles. Asleep, Danny’s face is serene, lacking entirely in the defensive truculence that characterises his waking expression. Dark brown lashes and brows. A fine, soft beard which Will remembers tickling him in some very odd places last night. A rosy mouth which… well, ditto.

Oh, these thoughts! Will bites his lip, still half unable to believe what he did last night. And yet, was it any different to what he’s done with Jack?

Well, maybe a little. Was it any… _worse_?

Will closes his eyes, and grins, as the word _better_ tries to squeeze itself out of him.

He gently, carefully, reclaims his arm, and levers himself upright in the narrow canyon between the warm bodies on either side. Danny sighs, but doesn’t open his eyes; Jimmy mumbles something, which Will thinks might be a request to return the heat of his back, but he can’t really make it out. Will kneels between them, in the middle of the rumpled bed, and looks. At all of both of them. At all the things he couldn’t _see_ last night.

They are, really, freakishly similar. Are they twins? He cannot recall asking. But he thinks Jimmy is perhaps slightly shorter, close to his own height, and wider in the chest. These are but minor differences, which aren’t visible as they lie there, Jimmy curled on his right side, Danny sprawled on his back. Will licks at his dirty teeth, and swallows, as he drinks in the sight of them. He has never looked at another man this way, save Jack Sparrow; and they’re not like Jack Sparrow, at all. There’s a width to their shoulders, their chests, a width that slopes in, with delicious drama, to narrow waists and hips; their thighs are every bit as densely muscular as Jack’s, and yet so much more sizeable and solid, and the skin so much paler, covered in red-gold hair. And though their hands and feet are callused, and if he looks hard, he can find signs of old fights and accidents, still they are not embellished, as Jack is, with a phantastickal history written in odd marks and symbols, both chosen and not. There’s a plainness about these bodies that makes them look very… new.

Things seem rather different, this morning. Last night his thoughts had been (well, at least during the earlier parts of the evening, when he could still be said to be thinking in any capacity whatsoever) tainted with anger, and desire for revenge of some kind, any kind; revenge on Jack Shaftoe, revenge on Jack Sparrow, either would do. But now? Now it feels quite different. Now, the results of his actions have value, purely and simply, for themselves; oh, Lord, the things that Jimmy and Danny did with him, did to him, took from him, felt _good_. Even the parts of him that are faintly throbbing now cannot detract from the memory of the goodness of it all. Being the sole focus of two men’s intentions and desires – for they resolutely ignored one another during the entire event, and expressed themselves only through Will, which gave him an astonishing amount of pleasure, but also required a degree of thoughtfulness and concentration on his part, to ensure that no one remained unsatisfied – was one of the most astoundingly erotic things that Will has ever dreamt of, let alone experienced. Now, oh now, he wants it again, pure and simple; and he couldn’t give a damn about his original motivations, except insofar as they might possibly stand between himself and the re-achievement of his desires.

He’s not sure how _they_ will react to _him_ , this morning, in the light of day. But he wants to find out. He reaches out gently, running his fingertips over the warm skin of Danny’s belly, of Jimmy’s waist; circling tenderly, knowing that his roughened sailor’s hands are nothing like the satin skin he touches, and sorry for it, and all the more gentle in recompense.

“I like it,” Jack used to say, when he’d apologise. “It reminds me that you’re a man, William, and not some pretty sprite”; for Jack, blatantly hypocritical, was forever teasing Will for his pretty face. And hadn’t Danny – or was it Jimmy? – done the self same thing, last night? Which makes Will grin to himself, and stroke them harder, till they both start to sigh and roll and move, Jimmy turning onto his back, Danny putting both hands behind his head. The perfect pale skin beneath his arms, the dark blond hairs, damp and vulnerable; Will wants to lick it. A tingly warmth is building in his groin, and as he slides his hands down both bodies, he watches the same phenomenon replicating on either side of him; he bites his lip, and strokes the two gently swelling pricks with the heels of his hands, pushing against tensed bellies, and then oh-so-slowly curls his long fingers around; Jimmy shifts his hips, and grins, eyes still closed.

Danny opens his eyes, with the same grin on his lips, which he licks, before saying, “Oh good, it’s you.”

“As opposed to?” queries Will, as Jimmy’s eyes fly open.

“Him,” says Danny, and starts to laugh, and Will suspects this is a long-running joke between the two of them, a suspicion which is confirmed when Jimmy mutters, “Feck off, I’m not touching your warty parts, Daniel Shaftoe.” Danny’s eyes narrow, and Will distracts them both with a twist of wrist that makes them both arch, and gasp, and subside.

“I assure you both,” says Will, “I’ve plenty of parts that’d appreciate touching, should you take it into your heads to do so, and none of ‘em warty.”

“Oh, don’t we know it,” says Danny, with a groan; “But we might just check again, to be sure,” adds Jimmy; and suddenly they’re both completely awake, and Will’s pulled down between them again, and his senses are rapidly overloaded by a warm welter of hands, and mouths, and hot, beautiful Shaftoe skin.

“Who,” he gasps vaguely, some time later, “who fucked me last night?”

“I,” mutters Danny, his tongue sliding lewdly down the base of Will’s spine; “’Twas I, and Jesus it was good Will, your arse is just, oh, just so unbelievably fuckable, I swear…”

“And who will, now?” says Will, clutching a handful of Danny’s hair, and making a strange animal noise as that tongue pushes, insistently, further down.

“That’d be me,” says Jimmy, and his tongue, hotter than fever, delves into Will’s open mouth, so determinedly that Will cannot say the words that fight to come from him, cannot say _Oh Christ yes Jimmy, fuck me please fuck me_ ; can do no more than moan formlessly against him and arch his hips back against Danny’s shameless mouth, and clutch Jimmy’s cock with fingers that tremble despite himself, tremble beneath the onslaught of his thumping heart and racketing blood and desperate desire.

*

The sun is high, the air is heavy and wet, and Jack Shaftoe’s sweating from that; and also from the beautiful immanence of the coming night, and all that he hopes (nay, expects!) (nay – demands!) that it’ll bring him; and also, unfortunately, from the decidedly un-beautiful immanence of the looming decision, which – whenever his thoughts veer t’wards it – drags horridly at his head with a deadly gravity that threatens to suck all the life and joy out of him. It takes every ounce of will to tear his attention free of it. But he does; has done, every few minutes of the day.

So the longhouse, shaded under tall overhanging trees, looks cool and dark and welcoming, and he strides towards it with determination, anticipating relief from at least _one_ of the day’s sweat-inducing elements. He’s expecting nothing, and listening for nothing, and so flings open the door without a second thought.

And stops as suddenly as a man who’s just been struck by lightning, and utters an inarticulate squeak.

Right there; right in front of him; right on _his bed!_ ; are the equally frozen figures of his sons, and William Turner.

They’re as still as Jack, as shocked as Jack, and damn near as sweaty as Jack; but a lot more naked than Jack.

He stumbles forward as Sparrow pushes him from behind; some part of him wishes he could see Sparrow’s face, as he hears a marvelling “What in the…?!” behind him.

The tableau is held only for a heartbeat, before the boys start scrambling apart, and covering themselves with whatever they can lay their hands on; but it’s far too late by then; it’s an image burned into Jack’s paternal retinas, etched by some mental acid that’s equal parts surprise and perverse parental pride. He blinks, and there they are, projected magically onto his closed eyelids; Danny sitting at the head of the bed, his head thrown back, knees splayed, hands tangled in the brown curls of William Turner, who’s looking up, his eyes wide, and his mouth wetly open, and it’s perfectly obvious that up until approximately half a second ago that mouth was full of Danny’s (rather impressively turgid) cock; and Turner’s up on his knees, his admittedly lovely arse presented high in the air, and there’s Jimmy kneeling behind him, far too close to be anything other than deeply buried, with one hand gripping Turner’s thigh to pull him closer, t’other on the boy’s shaft.

It’s burned itself so effectively into Jack’s memory that, were he a sculptor of any kind, he could reproduce it from imagination alone; he suspects this may well be the case for the rest of his natural life.

As the young men scramble for cover, there’s a delightfully farcical roundelay of exclamations (“Dad!” “Jack!” “Boys!” “Dad!” “Jack?” “William!”) that takes Jack right back to his misspent youth in the theatres of Southwark.

If he were any sort of Traditional Father Figure, he should probably erupt, about now, in a blazing fountain of brimstone, phosphorus, recriminations and disownings.

As it is, he’s rather tickled.

“Do carry on, gents,” he says; “My apologies for irrupting upon your cavortings; have fun, come and say hello when you’re done, eh?” He turns to go, but Jack Sparrow’s still standing in the doorway, a particularly wicked grin on his face.

“Ain’t you going to introduce us, then, Jack?” he says, and saunters forward, holding out a filthy hand to Danny, who’s now standing, scarlet faced, one end of a tatty sheet clasped around his hips; the other end is attached, similarly, to his brother. Jack wishes they wouldn’t clasp the sheet quite so tightly; it is very thin, and leaves dreadfully little to the imagination.

“Danny Shaftoe,” says that young gentleman, with all the equanimity he can muster, and he holds out a hand; Jack Sparrow shakes it, with a gigantic grin, and says “Charmed, utterly charmed”; Jimmy introduces himself similarly, and is told, “Jack Sparrow; I’ve heard a lot about you boys, but clearly not enough; I had no idea of the extent to which you took after your old man.”

He then ducks around behind them, to where Will Turner is sitting on the bed, holding a pillow over his privates; leans down to him, and stage whispers, “Darling, I’m so _proud_ of you!” Which utterance makes Turner scowl ferociously, and blush even more ferociously.

“Jack,” says Jack Shaftoe, recovering his voice, “Let’s away, eh?” He’s relieved to see that Danny and Jimmy have not leapt to the bait of Sparrow’s comments about himself (not that, right now, they were in any morally defensible position to do so). Today has been a day of revelations all round.

“Certainly,” says Sparrow, “I’d hate to disrupt such enjoyable sport. As my friend so rightly said, do carry on, gents.”

He flounces after Jack, barely able to restrain a skip, and slams the door behind them. Jack pauses for a second, straining to hear what’s being said inside; there are some low mutters, then a bark of laughter, and a giggle, and then a _come here_ , and then some other noises that he doesn’t really want to interpret in detail. He starts walking across the clearing.

“Well,” says Jack Sparrow, and looks up at him, his eyes dancing with amusement.

“Well indeed,” says Jack.

“That’s answered a question or two, hasn’t it?”

“I suppose you could say that,” says Jack, and he stops walking, and turns to Sparrow, who’s squinting in the bright sunlight, and looking decidedly more bedraggled than usual in his crushed and muddy clothing, his face dirty, his skin still pale from the events of the day. “On the other hand,” Jack continues, “It does beg at least one question; being the clear injustice of my boys giving Mr Turner what he wants, while I remain patient and yet, indubitably, unsatisfied.”

Sparrow smiles, sunlight refracting brightly from his mouth, and steps close to Jack. “You’ve a fair point,” he says, and places a palm on Jack’s chest, over the throb of his left nipple. “And all’s I can say is, good things come to he who waits; so wait till sundown, and come out to the _Pearl_ then, my friend, and it’ll all come to ye; ‘cause, God’s wounds, Jack, you mustn’t think…”

He puts his face up close to Jack’s, and licks hotly at Jack’s earlobe. “You mustn’t think,” he mutters, “that I have any real thought in my head right now apart from what it’s going to be like to kiss you, and be kissed by you; to lick, and suck you, and be licked and sucked by you; to fuck you, and be fucked by you.”

This last utterance pokes Jack like a sharp stick, and he starts to say, “You know I can’t –“

But Jack Sparrow puts up a hand to Jack’s mouth, and bites his ear, and says mockingly, “Mate, only someone who’s never been on the receiving end would think that the giver does all the fucking. Trust me. You’ll fuck me back.”

And then he takes all the air out of Jack’s lungs with a hard and sudden kiss, mouth opening wide and ravenous; he pushes himself, all the warm length of himself, against Jack, so that Jack can feel his erection pushing at his belly; he writhes and twists till Jack feels weak at the knees; and then he’s gone, striding down to the strand, calling over his shoulder, “Sundown!”

“Sundown,” mouths Jack; and then shakes his head to clear it, and goes in search of Enoch Bloody Root.

*

The Wazir is sitting under a palm-leaf umbrella outside the Bomb & Grapnel, being fanned by a notably nubile Queena-Kootahn maiden. He looks decidedly more imperial than the Sultan. Mr Foot’s going to have to work on that.

“Surendrenath,” says Jack, with a small inclination of his head, “Welcome back.”

“Thank you, Jack,” says the Wazir. “It’s good to be back; though, as so often happens when one is gone for a while, I find that several things of note have changed, in my absence.”

“Not really,” says Jack, nonchalant, waving, and walking on.

“Oh, come now,” Surendrenath remonstrates, and he gets up, falling into step beside Jack, his fan-maiden scrambling behind. “When I left, you, Jack, were not in the habit of disappearing for days, and then suddenly reappearing, only to fornicate publicly with visiting pirates; your sons, more or less ditto, from the sounds of things; and we usually had a reasonably accurate idea of where you and Enoch were, which is more than Mr Foot could provide us with today.”

“Don’t we know where Enoch is, then?” says Jack, demonstrating a remarkable talent for selective deafness.

“No.”

“Well in that case,” says Jack, “I’m going for a swim.”

“As you wish,” says Surendrenath, with a small smile; “though, as a word of warning, if you see van Hoek on your peregrinations, you might consider a change of course. He’s less than overjoyed that, in his absence, you’ve welcomed a pirate vessel into our harbour, offered to provision it, and apparently formed an attachment to its captain. I’m glad, for your sake, that he didn’t witness the fondness of your leave-taking, over there.”

“Fond perhaps, but ‘twas hardly _fornicating_ , as you so inventively put it,” scoffs Jack, attempting scorn in defiance of the flush he can feel on his face. The Wazir just smiles thinly, in the manner of a man who is not fooled for a moment.

“Swimming,” says Jack flatly. “Bye.”

*

He calls it swimming, though he knows it has a far more practical application, viz., washing; but the outward signs of both activities are remarkably similar. Jack floats on his back, a pale starfish staring up at the vivid blue sky, and lets thought wash over him, without giving it any active encouragement. There’s plenty to fill his head, without any effort on his part; for example, on any other day, surely he would be quite fixated on the idea that he has just surprised his sons _in flagrante_ with another man, or that Jack Sparrow is only a few hundred yards away, or that just today, someone seems to have made a decent stab at markedly increasing that distance, in metaphysickal if not geographickal terms.

Yes, all those things are rolling and bouncing around in Jack’s head; but in front of them all, like some lime-light hungry diva, is the thought of the coming evening and night.

It’s everything that Jack wants, and at the same time… He’s completed close to four decades on this earth, now, and there aren’t many things that he’s never done. There are even fewer things that he’s spent two of those decades fervently avoiding, and then only recently changed his mind on, and now aches, nervously, for.

He’s unsure if he’s more nervous about the idea of being on the receiving end of sodomy, or about the probability of successfully achieving a mutually pleasurable congress, given the rather unique state of himself. He’s desperate to feel that delicious, mindless pleasure again… he’s desperate to give it to Jack Sparrow. Oh, how he wants to watch that happening!

Strange underwater sounds penetrate his hazy daydreams, and he straightens, treading water; two boats, their oars splashing, are heading towards him. They’re filled with the _Pearl_ ’s crew.

The pretty girl sees him, and shakes a fist at him; and across the still water, her voice rings, clear as a bell. “You owe us, Mr Shaftoe.”

“I’m certain I do,” calls Jack, mystified, “if you say it’s so; but I don’t know what’s caused my indebtedness.”

“Seems tonight, the _Pearl_ ’s only big enough for two,” she cries, and there’s general laughter, and Jack dives down into the dim blue, where the water will muffle the sound, and cool the burn of his skin, and he stays there for as long as he humanly can.

*

Jack lights the lanterns as the sun approaches the horizon; the three great lights on the heavily carved transom, with its trident-bearing mermaids; smaller lights on the quarterdeck; others at the bow, and at the foot of each mast, and along the gunwales, and up on the forecastle. Something in him says that tonight must be full of light, that there must be no hiding in shadow for Jack Shaftoe. His company dispatched, he shamelessly raids the entire ship for the finest (or at the very least the cleanest) blankets, cushions and pillows he can find, and arrays them around the bow, which faces west, out of the bay, towards a brilliant sky of fuschia, orange, silver; fingers of God break up through the clouds in valediction. Jack stands still for a moment, breathtaken; then acknowledges that this display means Shaftoe will be here soon, and darts below to the galley, which he has ransacked for every best thing it contains; some very fine Demerara rum that he has been squirreling away for some celebration-worthy day, a plate of richly ripe fruit that AnaMaria has brought ashore, chicken left from yesterday’s dinner, some sweet hard Dutch bread from Batavia, full of spices and dried fruit.

Personally, he can’t conceive of being hungry, not when he’s got Jack Shaftoe in front of him; but it seems the hospitable thing to do. He brings it all up on deck.

So then he’s as ready as he’ll ever be; he curls the ends of his moustache, runs fingertips beneath each eye to ensure that the lamp-black is lying in suitably harlotrous lines; fiddles with two of his rings, which are slightly too large and tend to roll back palm-wards; and is just lifting an arm to sniff, just to check, when he sees a small native canoe pushing out from the beach. And in it, lit up bronze by the dying sun, is a rangy, tow-headed figure.

“Ack!” says Jack Sparrow, involuntarily, as his heart leaps into his mouth, and those final fears ( _he won’t come; he’ll change his mind; he’ll run off again; he’ll have an accident; someone’ll kill him_ ) evaporate as he inventively turns his armpit-sniffing action into a wave of greeting.

Shaftoe waves back, and suddenly Jack’s as hard as he’s ever been in his life; and dizzy with the thought of Jack Shaftoe – his mouth, his hands, his wiry body, his muscular _virgin_ arse; and, though he’d sooner croak than admit it to himself (let alone Shaftoe), writhingly nervous that he won’t, in fact, be able to deliver the results he’s promised.

_Course I will_ , he mutters to himself. _Captain Jack Sparrow, ain’t I?_

Absolutely.

But still.


	11. impofperversity | Trochal, Chapter Eleven

  


What has taken the longest? Is it the endless afternoon, or the neverending journey from the shore to the ship; or the incredible slowness of ascending the rope at the _Pearl’s_ stern? All of these have taken forever; but as Jack’s feet hit the warm dark deck, cruel time slows still further; and though Jack Sparrow stands only a few feet away from him, it seems he’ll never reach him.

Jack Sparrow, in dusk and lanternlight, with the delicate evening breeze lifting long strands of hair across his face. A face that had flickered and melted in twenty years of not being seen, and now that Jack sees it again, he cannot believe that it was ever less clear in his mind’s eye than it is at this moment.

“Welcome,” says Sparrow, and though Jack knows he means it, still he notes that the pirate can’t keep a tiny particle of irony out of his voice, or amusement off his face; and it’s this, more than anything, that tells Jack that the other man is nervous. Which makes him smile.

The ship rocks gently beneath his feet, oddly silent, oddly still without her symbiotic cargo of humans. She’s beautiful in lanternlight; dark and elegant, her stays and masts soaring out of light and sight above him. But not as beautiful as her captain.

“Are you hungry?” Sparrow asks; “Yes,” says Jack, though he means it quite differently.

“Come here,” says Sparrow, and he beckons Jack for’ard, and Jack looking up sees a rich sea of colour instead of the black deck and cleanly flemished ropes that he expects; like some Sultan’s harem, the triangle of deck is transformed under a layer of rich fabrics and plump cushions, and in the centre of it all sits a selection of food, and bottles of liquor; and Jack Sparrow has assembled all this here, for him. For Jack Shaftoe.

This is not something that has happened to Jack before. This kind of treatment. He’s rather taken aback by it.

“You didn’t…” he tries, and trails off, and starts again. “You didn’t have to do this, Jack. There was no need.”

Sparrow, standing on a crumpled swathe of deep ruby velvet, turns, and grins; “I know,” he says, “but ain’t it fun, Jack? And, mate… ain’t you worth it?”

Jack snorts. “I’ve no idea; nor, might I add, do you.”

“Alright, then; ain’t _I_ worth it?” He cocks his head to one side, outlined against the darkening sky, hands on his hips, feet planted wide; barefoot in his breeches, his silhouette little changed from when Jack first laid eyes on him, parading himself before the assembled prisoners. And in twenty years of wandering, in twenty years of meeting hundreds, maybe thousands of other human beings, Jack has never, never met one to compare with the infuriating, the quixotic, the beautiful, the fascinating Jack Sparrow. He thought he had; but now, he sees he was wrong. And oh Christ yes, he’s worth it. Even if it’s only for one night; even if Jack is going to head off on his wrong-headed quest and never see him again.

Jack’s taken right back to that long ago night, when he watched Jack Sparrow dancing, wild and free, and had to take him for his own or lose his mind; and he steps onto the warm sliding velvet, and wraps an arm around Sparrow’s waist, and pushes his other hand up under the thick knotted hair, and says, his voice suddenly gruff with wanting, “You’re worth anything, and everything, and well you know it, Jack.”

Jack Sparrow’s gaze could reduce him to cinders and ash; he closes his eyes against it, and time slows again as he feels the approach of that perfectly beautiful mouth, the thing that started all this in the first place, the thing that broke through all Jack’s barriers and expectations; the world is all one swirly beautiful vortex around the body and mouth of Jack Sparrow, and Jack cannot breathe, suspects his heart is no longer beating, as that mouth draws slowly nearer, and then it’s on him, hot and open, and his own mouth opens to it, and Jack can almost hear the metaphorical click as they dovetail, perfectly, together.

And Jack wonders how he has survived nineteen years without this; how did he survive the loss of this, without going quite mad with grief; because there is nothing in this world, and never has been, and surely never will be, anything that fills him and delights him and fires him the way this man’s mouth does. Whether it is the taste of gold and flesh, or the delicious heat of it; or the firm certain tongue that slides over his own teeth and tongue; or the spicy musky smell of Jack Sparrow’s skin, warm against his face; oh, god, whatever it is, it shoots straight to the pit of his stomach and the base of his spine and the root of his cock, or what’s left of it, and kissing Jack Sparrow is like nothing else in this world. Especially, especially, when Sparrow grinds up against him, and Jack feels (o joy!) that long hardness against his belly; he doesn’t understand why Sparrow still feels this way about him, but fucked if he’s going to argue the point. Sparrow’s hands wander up Jack’s arms, over his shoulders, thumbs tucking into the tender flesh of his armpits; and ‘twas ever thus, there was no part of Jack that Sparrow did not want to explore and touch and taste. But now; now, Jack will not say no, will not distract him away from tender secret places, but will let him have it all. All.

He reaches down to Sparrow’s sash, tugging and pulling till it falls away. No more patience. No more games. No more anticipation. He needs it, now. Now. He pushes his hands up under Jack Sparrow’s shirt, spreading his fingers wide, wide as his open mouth, bending Sparrow backwards as his hungry tongue delves and demands; the skin beneath his hands is hot silk over bones like flexing, bending tree-branches. He wants to bite, suck, devour. He pushes the linen upwards, and Sparrow, obedient, raises his arms. As Jack pulls the shirt over his head it releases the warm smell of Sparrow’s skin, and Jack takes a huge, sucking breath, wanting to fill himself with it, dizzy with it, spinning with it; he throws the shirt down, and pulls the pirate to him, and skin on skin is so ludicrously beautiful that for a moment he can do nothing else, cannot kiss or stroke or think as he sways against Jack Sparrow, is made stupid by the sensation of his skin moving against the other’s. And scars are ignored. The squeaking pain in his left nipple is ignored. They are infinitesimally small matters, next to the incredible reward of this skin on his own.

And then the reward increases as Sparrow’s clever tongue – oh god was this the first way he ever touched Jack? – licks at his neck, and up behind his ear. Is it the hot wet swipe of tongue, or the tickling drag of moustache and beard, or the rough gasp of breath, or the gentle bite of teeth – what is it that makes him shudder and forget to breathe, what is it that makes every nerve of his skin react? Whatever it is, it’s good, damnation it’s good, and Jack wants to shout in triumph that the oddities of Fate have brought him to this place; he pushes Sparrow’s hair away from his neck and shoulders, and though some strands persist, sticking to damp skin, he fastens his mouth similarly; feels the movement of muscles as Sparrow’s arms are lifted, to balance on his shoulders; oh, how ridiculous to be this aroused by a man’s arms, a man’s shoulders! Yet they’re lovely, always have been; sculpted, curving, hard and flexing, and Jack’s completely undone by them. Completely. Add to that the taste of the skin beneath his tongue, and Sparrow’s mouth on the sensitive skin behind his ear, and all in all, he’s transported, and suddenly can conceive… can _believe_ that it’s all possible, that it can all be his, that Jack Sparrow can give him what no other person, save sweetly chill Eliza, has ever managed. And more. More.

Sparrow’s mouth leaves his skin for a moment, just barely; “I thought you said you were hungry?”

“I am,” growls Jack, and bites to prove it, and Jack Sparrow hisses appreciatively.

The sound helps Jack recover himself for a moment, and think to ask, “Are you alright? After, earlier, the…” And he blows sharply on Sparrow’s shoulder, imitating the blown dart.

“What? Oh, yes, that; nothing to a hardened pirate, mate; it’s quite the least of my concerns,” says Sparrow, his long spidery fingers working their way over Jack’s chest, swerving carefully around the still swollen nipple where his own gold shines dimly in the lanternlight. He grinds his hips against Jack, and Jack grunts in appreciation.

“But did you find Root?” says Sparrow suddenly, and it takes Jack a moment to recall who ‘Root’ even is, let alone why he might have been seeking him out.

“No,” he says, shortly. “And don’t change the subject.”

“Me, change the subject?” Sparrow’s tongue does something particularly lewd in Jack’s ear, sending a terrific shudder down his spine. “You’re the one who started trying to distract me with talk of murder attempts.”

“That wasn’t a change of subject,” insists Jack, somewhat weakly. “That was… research to ascertain your fitness for The Current Subject, in fact.”

“The Current Subject being?” enquires Sparrow, with flagrant coyness.

Jack cannot restrain a grin. “Same as it’s always been, between you and I.”

“Oh, not _always_ , Jack; I recall your requiring a notable amount of persuasion to even contemplate The Current Subject.”

And Jack grins wider still, and takes Sparrow’s face in his hands; runs a thumb over a sharp cheekbone, and another over the mouth that still glistens from his kiss; and he says, “Always, I tell you.”

A wide, slow smile comes over the pirate, and he mutters, “Is that so, now?”

“When I first saw you there, on the beach,” says Jack (his hands busy as he talks; caressing the narrow waist, sliding behind, fingers tracing over rough linen, pressing against the taut curve of arse that’s haunted his dreams, sleeping and waking, for so very long); “I did not want to think it, ‘tis true, but I thought it nonetheless. And you knew it, for you teased me, with your message in the sand; and the Imp knew it, for didn’t he press me to volunteer to be your ‘complice?”

“The who?”

“Never mind, I’ll tell you another time; point being, d’you not recall how your hands and mouth worked upon me, though I swore it wasn’t my wish? Don’t tell me you didn’t know it then, just as you know it now.”

“I did know it, then,” confesses Sparrow, glancing up intently from under thick lashes, in a way that makes Jack salivate helplessly; “and I do know it now.” With which claim, his clever fingers untwist the knot that holds Jack’s _sarung_ in place, and he pulls it away.

Jack knows, very well, that the Remnant is as enthusiastic, right now, as it’s ever been; but still he knows it to be a rather unprepossessing sight, compared to that with which he used to present Jack Sparrow, and he’s discomfited, particularly in the face of such beauty. He would hide, would seek invisibility in the close press of Sparrow’s body. But Sparrow will have none of it, holding him instead at arm’s length, letting his eyes roam over every inch.

“Jack,” says Jack Shaftoe, meaning, in that one short syllable, _please don’t stare at me so, just lie me down and do what you will, and let me do as I will to you_ ; and he finds his hands creeping to shield his infirmity from Sparrow’s painfully bright gaze, something which surprises him, for he’s never done it before. But his wrists are caught, and he’s told, in no uncertain terms: “Jack Shaftoe, don’t you hide from me; that ain’t you, and I don’t like it.”

“Then don’t you hide from me, neither,” says Jack, arching an eyebrow at Sparrow’s straining breeches; out of which Sparrow wriggles with delicious alacrity, and Jack’s lost, as ever, in the hypnotically supple strength and beauty of that body, and he’s filled with a heat that shimmers out from his belly, his heart, to the outermost reaches of his limbs, and just stares for a long moment, nothing else, just stares as the _Pearl_ creaks and rocks slowly beneath him, and turns his hands palm-outwards at his sides and says, “No hiding, then.”

“Can’t; can’t hide from me,” Sparrow says thickly. He pulls Jack over to the piled cushions, and pushes him down; Jack leans against velvet, heart pounding, Jack Sparrow crouched between his bent knees, all shadow and dark gleam, strange beauty and delicious intensity. Naked, oh god so naked, and his eyes as black as Jack Shaftoe has ever seen them.

So very fascinating that Jack thinks it’s almost enough just to look at him.

Almost. But not quite.

“Come here,” he demands. And Jack Sparrow does. Though, being Jack Sparrow, he grabs the rum first.

*

He means to wait, and tease, and take his time, really he does; but, God’s blood! How can he be patient, with Jack Shaftoe in front of him, thick hair blowsy and disheveled, escaping already from its queue; eyes heavy-lidded and dreamy, mouth redly open; and Lord, Jack can’t find it in him to regret threading that gold into Shaftoe’s flesh, because it looks like nothing on earth, all the more subtly whorish for the simple, unadorned canvas it appears on; the spare, mannish lines of Shaftoe’s body so powerfully plain in Jack’s eyes, used as they are to the colourful Brethren, with their ornament and frippery. And yet, there is nothing plain about that face; square, lively, warm, and oh fuck the _dimples_ when he grins like that!

Jack leans over, grabs the narrow neck of a fatly curved bottle of rum, and passes it to Shaftoe; he’s stalling now, stalling because he fears that once he starts, he will struggle to restrain himself in any reasonable manner. Shaftoe drinks, and passes it back, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, and Jack drinks too, quickly and deeply, enjoying the burn down his chest, and then puts it down, and climbs over Shaftoe’s thighs till he’s straddling him, sitting on his lap. From here he can look down on Jack Shaftoe, which he can’t normally manage when they’re standing, and it feels _good_ ; Shaftoe’s face is tilted up to his, and a dark pink tongue licks wetly along a bottom lip so edible that Jack cannot help leaning down and biting it; and he bites a little hard, a salty well of blood contrasting brightly with the sweet rum still on his tongue, but Shaftoe, being Shaftoe, doesn’t complain, merely bites back.

“So,” mutters Jack, “shall we do this then, Mr Shaftoe?”

Shaftoe’s great warm hands spread over the curve of Jack’s behind, his thumbs pressing into Jack’s sharp hipbones. Jack is all but insensible at the sight of a slow well of deep redblack blood on the man’s lip; and is then rendered even more so as Shaftoe groans, through a smile, “Oh, fuck, yes, Jack, please, yes.”

“Good,” whispers Jack, and he leans forward against Shaftoe, darting out his tongue to lick away the blood, pulling his face away from Shaftoe’s attempted kiss, licking instead over Shaftoe’s cheek, temple, round the curve of his ear, loving the press of Shaftoe’s hands against his flesh.

“I’m going to make you feel _so fucking good_ , Jack Shaftoe,” he growls, just to confirm it to himself as much as anything; because Jack knows he’s set himself a serious challenge here. Not only is he dealing with a man whose facilities have been severely impaired; not only is he dealing with a man who Hasn’t Before, at least, not the way that Jack intends; no, as if these were not sufficient, Jack also has to convince this man that what they’re about to do is worth giving up his life’s ambition for, abandoning his sons for, abandoning his friends and fortune for.

Because if he doesn’t, he’ll lose him again. And that is not an option.

Luckily, Jack’s always been spectacular under pressure.

“Go on, then,” says Shaftoe, and Jack throws his head back, laughing at the delectable demanding presumption of the man, and cries, “Oh, you’ll live to regret those words, Jack Shaftoe!”; leans forward till there’s no more than an inch between their faces, and they can feel each other’s breath, and their eyes are fixed on one another, fervid with excitement; and whispers, “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Are you ready?”

“ _Yes!_ ”

“Are you really, really-“

Jack’s words are cut short, stifled under the delicious pressure of Shaftoe’s mouth.

… and then it’s all on, and Jack’s a savage, naked sprite biting and sucking and groaning, twisting against the hard body beneath him, his cock shoving greedily against Shaftoe’s belly. Oh Jesus, Jack Shaftoe feels so good, so good against his skin, that Jack can feel, already, a liquid slickness where his cockhead rubs and weeps, urgently. He knows it will be so easy for him, it will require almost nothing, god, he could come right now; stopstopstop shhhhh. He forces himself to stop thrusting, to stop kissing, to wriggle back down Shaftoe’s thighs. To start exploring, with serious intent, the body beneath him; he hasn’t been given the chance to, not properly, since finding him again. And so, with fingers and arms and mouth and rubbing face, tasting and sniffing and humming his delight, he begins to; begins with the gorgeous hollow at the base of Jack Shaftoe’s throat, follows along the bony clavicle; pushes his tongue into Shaftoe’s armpit, half expecting the arm to be clamped tight and a discouraging growl to issue, but instead getting a breathy laugh and arms flung over Shaftoe’s head, and ain’t that a wonderful sign? Perhaps Jack Shaftoe’s getting the message that Jack’s been at such pains to convey, being that every part of him is delicious. Jack runs his tongue broadly over the damp, dark blond hairs, and up the soft pale skin of Shaftoe’s arm, then kisses him on the mouth again, sharing the fresh, salty taste of sweat, muttering, _See, it’s good_.

And then he dips his attention lower, trying not to be too distracted by Shaftoe’s hands (which are shivering over his nipples, following the curve of his ribs, tracing the fine dark line of hair down to his navel, making his cock twitch with anticipation). He kisses and licks his way over and down, listening hard to Shaftoe’s breaths and gasps as he hits tender spots, and lingering there, teasing, teasing, teasing, then pushing and biting till Shaftoe arches and pants, and then backing off, and finding some other sweet spot to taunt; and thus he works his way down Jack Shaftoe’s chest, until, after spending some considerable amount of time on his navel, and side tracking deliciously to either hip, he finds that he’s wriggled back and down so far that he’s lying on his stomach, between Shaftoe’s hairy golden thighs, and there it is, right before him, dear Jack Shaftoe’s scarred and savaged cock.

And Shaftoe sits just a little more upright, saying, as if it really doesn’t matter to him one way or t’other, “You don’t have to, Jack”; and Jack stares up at him, and cocks an eyebrow, and puts out his tongue for a taste (said taste: Jack Shaftoe’s skin, what else, and what else but good?) and says, “Have you ever known me to do something I didn’t want to, mate?”

And does what he wants to do.

*

After the Incident, for a long time, Jack Shaftoe (naturally) had no urge to be touched on his healing skin; and when finally healed, still he did not pursue any opportunities for a long time, chary of the reception he might receive. When he finally reached a point of not caring any more, of needing release more than he needed politesse, he experimented with various whores and actresses (sometimes difficult to differentiate) of his acquaintance; but, without exception, these encounters disproved his optimistic hypotheses. The “lady” in question invariably appalled, though occasionally sympathetic; Jack rather shamed to present such a credential, unable to conclude the transaction in the traditional manner, too self-conscious to abandon himself happily to their proffered alternatives, and too prideful and ignorant to pursue less orthodox methodologies; the subsequent failure reflecting badly on both parties. Never one to pursue a losing course, Jack abandoned the entire endeavour, resigning himself to Noble Chastity.

And then there came Eliza, who Knew Things, and was occasionally willing to Do Them (though admittedly with calculation, and restraint, and in the manner of one conveying a repayable favour). Which, at the time, had been a quantum leap above Jack’s expectations for pleasure.

But this; this is a quantum leap again.

Jack Sparrow, the loveliest (male) creature that Jack has ever seen, is sprawled between Jack’s thighs, and his mouth, the most beautiful (male, female or otherwise) that has surely ever existed, is fastened hungrily around Jack’s half-cock; has spent an impossibly lovely age licking, and sucking, and nipping at Jack’s flesh, making Jack’s hips twitch and thrust, making Jack gasp and bite his lip (which seems to be bleeding) and arch back into these beautiful soft smothering pillows, rolling his eyes. He feels, once more, like a fourteen year old lad visiting his first bawd, unable to quite believe that these sensations can be created in his own familiar flesh, and he’s faint and dizzy with it, and how can he possibly have assumed for so long that this was a dead part of his life, when Jack Sparrow can bring it to life, just like that? Just with a touch of his pointy tongue and the sweet nip of his teeth?

Jack, shaky with it, lets out a sound that’s embarrassingly akin to a sob; and Sparrow looks up at him, and they stare at one another, Jack wide-eyed and trembly and deliciously shocked, and Sparrow full of wicked glee. He lets go of Jack for a moment, mutters, “’M not hurting you, then?” and Jack manages, just, to shake his head and hiss, “Don’t stop, don’t”; Sparrow grins, and doesn’t.

Jack can’t believe it, he can feel his balls gathering up, can feel the warmth building and building, and he pushes, curves, into that lovely hot and swirling mouth; stares avidly at the narrow muscular form laid out before him, clutching at his thighs, and _oh Jesus_ now he sees Jack Sparrow’s buttocks clenching as the pirate rubs himself against velvet and cushions, in time with the irresistible suction that he inflicts upon Jack’s helpless self, and at the sight and thought of that Jack cries out _oh Jesus fucking oh god Jack_ and to his complete astonishment is sucked into a helpless whirlpool of utter, utter pleasure and comes in Jack Sparrow’s mouth, his head thrown back, mouth open in a soundless cry, stars wheeling above and around him, the world tilting, his every expectation of life thrown quite off-kilter.

*

Jack Sparrow, shocked, delighted, and temporarily patient, stays with him through the final pulse of it all; is massively tempted, for a moment, to release similarly; then has a moment of _no, dammit, I want more_ and heroically stops himself. He waits until he feels Jack Shaftoe go limp, and hears a long indrawn breath; then licks up the last of it, milky and pungent, and scrambles up to lie atop beautiful, panting Shaftoe; far enough up that his cock presses, a not-very-subtle reminder, against the satin convexity betwixt Shaftoe’s hip and belly.

Kisses him, and Shaftoe sighs, and opens his mouth wide to the strange taste of himself.

“That was unexpected,” admits Shaftoe.

Jack grins. “Thought you were some sort of challenge, mate. You’re a fucking pushover.”

“Haven’t been,” says Jack Shaftoe, “I swear; not for a long time.”

“So what’s changed?” asks Jack, innocently quizzical, knowing the answer full well, but wanting Shaftoe to say it. Said out loud, anything can gain currency, can become real. And Shaftoe makes it real.

“You,” he says, blue eyes dark in the lanternlight.


	12. impofperversity | Trochal, Chapter Twelve

  


Expectations, Jack Sparrow reflects, are tricky buggers, and something to be avoided; for they’ll invariably be confounded, and ain’t this the perfect exemplar?

There he’s been, for two days, considering how best to circumvent the tragic restrictions of Jack Shaftoe’s physical capacities, and then!

Christ, it was almost as easy as young William Turner’s first blushing and desperate release. And Jack couldn’t be happier about it.

He lies side-by-warm-side with Shaftoe, looking up at bright winking stars, at the dimming shapes of the _Pearl_ ’s soaring timbers and tight-reefed canvas silhouetted against them, and would be perfectly, utterly content, were it not for the insistent erection that won’t leave him be. He wants more, and he wants it tonight; just as soon as Shaftoe’s recovered. Meanwhile, he feeds tender morsels of chicken to the King of the Vagabonds, who laughs at being treated like some lounging houri, and bites at Jack’s fingertips, and demands more rum; and who, deliciously, cannot wipe the smile from his face. The smile that Jack put there. Oh yes. Jack leans over, exploring a crease of dimple with his tongue. Shaftoe swallows, and grins more, and rolls slowly over on top of Jack, and Jack lets him, lets himself be pushed and spreadeagled; can’t bring himself to care when his heel mashes wetly into a plate of fruit.

“Have you not had enough yet, Mr Shaftoe?” queries Jack, as Shaftoe’s warm tongue explores his neck, the hollow at its base.

“Far from it,” says Shaftoe.

“Cake?” says Jack innocently, proffering a wedge, and Shaftoe grins, and says “Nope.”

“More chicken?”

“Nope.”

“I’d offer mango, but it’s, well, mangled… rum?”

“Nope.”

“Well,” says Jack, writhing slowly and happily beneath the weight of the other man, “I’m sure I can’t think how else to fill you, Jack.”

“There, and I’d a notion you were a man of ideas,” says Shaftoe, taking his weight on his elbows, and gently rubbing the skin of his chest against Jack’s, soft hairs tickling, hardened nipples flicking across Jack’s own.

“Are you sure you’re open to all my ideas, then?”

“I’d say so,” says Shaftoe, and his voice is so growly deep and intent that Jack has to bite his lip to distract himself from it as his poor prick, still unrelievedly swollen, twitches in desperation.

“Alright, then; d’you know what I really want?”

“I could probably make a reasonably educated guess.”

“Bet you can’t,” says Jack, and before Shaftoe can argue back, he pushes him off, and wriggles out from under; and, with reassuring noises and touches and where necessary kisses all the while, arranges him on piled cushions and blankets, on his belly, hips propped. Shaftoe laughs and covers his face with his big hands, to be treated so – like some beautiful harlot – but oh, beautiful he is, and Jack can’t help but lick at the backs of those knees, where corded ligaments frame tender skin, and up further, up the muscles of the backs of his thighs. Where Jack’s mouth touches, the muscles harden, till it’s like kissing warm hairy wood, and Jack loves it, loves it. His hands, emissaries for his mouth, skitter ahead of him, up over the tense curve of arse, and on up the spine, and he’s gratified to think that the little noise Shaftoe makes might be one of disappointment as his predicted destination is bypassed.

Jack slides up behind him, his cock hanging heavy and bumping against Shaftoe’s thighs, and he enjoys the shudder that it sends through the body beneath him; then he pushes Shaftoe’s hair off to one side, and licks at the nape of his neck, where he’s always liked it, and oh yes, he still does. Likes it enough to groan, and press his arse up t’wards Jack. Oh yes.

*

The mouth on his neck, and the hair against his face and shoulders, the warm smooth ivory beads that fall and bounce against his lips, are all so very very delicious, and Jack Shaftoe, for the first time since the Incident (or the second, if one counts the episode just passed as a separate occurrence) is completely and utterly immersed in Being Made Love To. He’s still dizzily jubilant from having come, so unexpectedly, against Sparrow’s clever tongue, and it hasn’t taken long to regain all his ardour. He certainly remains excessively enthusiastic as Sparrow’s mouth works its way wetly down his spine, the pirate’s hands wandering over his flesh in great warm swirls, the sensation of them changing oddly as they swerve away from scarred flesh to smooth, and back again.

Jack cannot reach him, cannot kiss him, so tries instead to explain just how he’s feeling; a decision which he thinks would normally only be reached while excessively drunk, which he isn’t, or at least, not on liquor; but Jack Sparrow’s golden flesh and seeking mouth seem to be intoxicating him in much the same manner, and he sounds to his own ears like a drunkard as he mutters broken phrases. Perhaps the spine has some strange properties which Jack has never before recognised, for he finds that the lower the pirate’s mouth moves, the more impossible it becomes to remain still, and he finds himself squirming like the most spirited sort of whore, and that in itself (against soft fabrics on one side, against Sparrow-skin on the other) is enormously pleasurable. And he finds, what’s more, that he’s entirely unperturbed by the idea that Jack Sparrow is about to push narrow fingers into his arse; it’s not as if Eliza hadn’t done the same, and what difference between a tiny ex-harem slave and a handsome pirate, really?

So, all in all, Jack’s happy and anticipatory, and generally flooded with good feeling; and is thus really not at all prepared for the shock of _shock_ that hits him when, instead of gentle fingers, he realises that the pressure he feels in a most intimate spot is that of a _tongue_. He jerks away, and clenches his buttocks tight, and doesn’t relax ‘em even when he registers that there’s at least one beard-braid held captive; “What’re you _doing_?!” he demands, with as much indignation as can be mustered under the circumstances (viz., naked, splayed arse-upward, said arse very much in the face of a similarly naked man).

“Oh, just let me,” says Sparrow, rather crossly, and slaps Jack’s behind.

“Why?”

“Because you’ll like it.”

“Unlikely, though I’ll concede the possibility,” says Jack, becoming verbose in his discomfort, “but I fail to see how _you_ could.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” says Sparrow, and he licks a long, lewd line along the cleft of Jack’s arse; “Now, will you just fucking relax and let me? Please?” Small kisses reiterate the line painted wetly by his tongue. “Please?”

_Let him do’t, go on, din’t you say you’d not say no to anything that sweet Jack Sparrow wants, and din’t you?_ hisses the Imp, peeking up through the hawse-hole. He has been notably absent this evening, which is a sure sign to Jack that so far, everything that’s occurred here has been what he really wants, wants with his whole, undivided, unequivocal heart. So, really, why not let his dear familiar push him a little further?

“Alright, go on then,” says Jack with a fair show of distrust, but underneath, he’s undeniably delighted by Jack Sparrow’s apparently unquenchable urge for the filthiest things his inventive mind can come up with. He tries to relax, and not to think about it in any great detail, and reaches across for the half-empty rum bottle, taking a hefty swig, and then almost _dear God!_ choking on it as a shiver runs up and through him; Sparrow’s deft and elegant hands have spread him, and that tongue is upon him again, and he feels sure he would laugh, if only it didn’t, actually, feel rather good… oh, rather _very_ good… oh, warm and wet in the way of a woman, but so very active, that tongue is, and it’s accompanied by a sure hand that slides firm along the root of his cock, stealing saliva to ease its way, and cupping his balls, performing some strange feat of prestidigitation there.

And though at first, Jack had not wanted to consider the detail of what is being done to him, it soon begins to feel so very delicious that, pressing and writhing into it and biting his wrist to stop the groans and cries that want to burst forth, he indulges in a most arousing internal mantra along the lines of _Jack’s tongue, that’s Jack Sparrow’s tongue, there, there, his tongue, right there, and o!_ The final o! comes, with a gasp, as with a push and a twist that tongue penetrates, and Jack’s lost, so very very lost, so very very happily lost; and despite everything he might have thought he would do in this situation, he finds that what he actually _does_ do is let out a long low purring hum and arch determinedly into it.

Which action he immediately regrets, as the mouth withdraws from him, leaving his skin chill and moist in the night air, and then subsequently doesn’t regret at all as Jack Sparrow layers his long lean self down upon Jack’s back, his cock pressing hard against the crease of Jack’s arse, and the pirate mutters into his ear, “Jesus, Jack Shaftoe, you can’t do that to me, can’t make that noise, not unless you want me to spend right _now_ ; I can’t bear it any longer, Jack, I have to fuck you, I have to. Oh, Christ, I could come this instant, I swear-” and Jack feels a shuddering tremble run through the man’s arms as he lifts himself, reduces the beautiful pressure between their bodies “-wait just a moment, Jack, just a moment-”

Jack, half-pinioned, squirms over onto his back; he’s been thinking about this for days, days, and he means to be able to see Jack Sparrow’s face as they do this; maybe later, oh yes later, he will let Sparrow take him from behind, ‘cause he can surely remember just how good that used to feel, that gorgeous arse, roundly fleshed and muscular and bony all at once presented up to him. As Sparrow, his weight balanced on one shuddering arm, fumbles ‘neath the pillows, Jack sucks and bites at his neck, and he waits, heart hammering, for the touch he wants, oh, needs…

But then, simultaneous, they both freeze.

“Did you hear that?”

“Aye, oars?”

A pause, a swollen, frozen pause; Jack can feel Sparrow’s heartbeat against his chest. There it is again.

“I. Will. Fucking. Kill. Them,” says Sparrow between gritted teeth, and he leaps up; Jack rolls over, in time to see the pirate striding naked to the gunwales, holding up a hand to shield his eyes against the lights of the ship, shouting, “What part of ‘tomorrow morning’ confused you, you useless, scabrous, scurvied, leprous – ohh.” And then his hands are in the air, and he’s backing up.

Someone, clearly, is pointing a firearm his way.

Jack, knowing he’s still not visible from the boat below, dives t’wards Sparrow’s discarded effects, and grabs pistol and sword, then crawls up behind Sparrow, who’s standing there like a man in clear line of fire, trying to look unaggressive, which isn’t terribly difficult when naked and unarmed. But Jack has no patience, now, for non-aggression. His blood’s more than up, and he is perfectly willing (in fact, rather keen) to murder anyone who’s a) threatening Jack Sparrow, and, for Christ’s sake, simultaneously b) stopping Jack Sparrow from roundly fucking Jack’s good self. This is ridiculous!

He waits, only seconds, until the voice below starts to speak; then, knowing that any man’s just a little distracted by the sound of his own voice, he simultaneously launches to his feet and pushes Sparrow down in front of him, the cocked pistol aimed at the source of the voice, and cries, “Who d’ye think’s the better shot, and shall we put money-”

But then he stops short, peering into the dimness below, and then says, “Otto, what the _fuck_ d’you think you’re doing?”

Jack Sparrow clambers to his knees; “More friends of yours, Jack?”

“Jack, are you coming down, or are we coming up?” demands a querulous voice from below. Jack rolls his eyes.

“How about you fuck off home, and I’ll stay here, and we’ll talk in the morning?”

“I want this damn ship gone by morning,” cries Otto van Hoek, “and if it’s not, it’ll have _Minerva_ to answer to.”

Jack sighs. “I don’t think he’s going to go away,” he says to Sparrow.

Sparrow peers over the gunwales. “Couldn’t you just shoot him?” he says, hopefully.

“I think that might be construed by some as a bit of an over-reaction,” says Jack, though with a definite measure of regret, since the suggestion doesn’t seem to him to be entirely without merit.

*

By the time van Hoek and his band of supporters have boarded, Jack Sparrow has wrapped himself in that horrid piece of cloth that Shaftoe insists on wearing; not for any inherent sartorial qualities it might be (and yet isn’t) harbouring, but primarily to see whether Shaftoe will pull on Jack’s own breeches; which, with a sly look at Jack, he does; and they are, just as Jack suspected, rather pleasingly tight, and what’s more, make Jack Shaftoe look like a particularly dishevelled and debauched sailor-boy. Jack digs his nails into the meat of his thumb – stop those thoughts – he’s barely under control as it is, and this loathsome excuse for a garment will hide absolutely nothing.

Not that it isn’t utterly obvious, to one and all, what they’ve been up to.

The short, red-haired Dutchman has clearly been drinking, and is equally clearly enraged. He’s first aboard, closely followed by half a dozen of his crew, none of whom Jack recognises, and the so-called Sultan, huffing and panting; they stand in the waist, blinking in the lanternlight. “Otto” still holds his pistol, though it’s no longer aimed; the others bear swords, undrawn, apart from the Sultan, who bears nothing but a rather nervous expression. Jack looks at Shaftoe’s face and the determined pressure of his knuckles around the butt of the cocked pistol, and thinks that if he’d done to Jack Shaftoe what this lot have just done, he’d be looking mighty nervous an’ all. Frankly, Jack Shaftoe, with a pistol in his left hand and a sword in his right, looks fierce enough that he might be able to take the lot of ‘em, should he set his mind to’t. It’s positively distracting. Jack attempts to concentrate on the matter in hand.

“Welcome to the _Black Pearl_ , gentlemen,” he says, with heavy sarcasm.

The Dutchman looks around, his lip curling as he looks up to the piles of cushions, the bottles, the messy remnants of food, Jack’s discarded shirt.

“Captain,” he says, “your vessel came into port at a time when we were unguarded; which, you’ll note, we are no longer; and so I must ask you to leave, immediately.”

Jack lounges against the quarterdeck stair rail. He waves an arm about, indicating the silent ship. “Sadly, Mr… I’m sorry, how dreadfully impolite, I’ve no idea who you are.”

“ _Captain_ Otto van Hoek, of the _Minerva_ ,” grinds out van Hoek.

“Oh, how delightful, a fellow seafarer; Captain Jack Sparrow, of the _Black Pearl_ , at your service; where was I; oh, yes, sadly, as you can see, all my men are ashore at present. Where, I might add, we’ve been most hospitably received in your absence; and I’m rather surprised to find the tide changing quite so suddenly.”

“My companions did not know you for _pirates_ ,” says van Hoek, spitting the word more than speaking it.

“Oh, bollocks,” says Jack equably, examining his nails.

“Well, if I may interject,” says Mr Foot, “I suppose we might have temporarily _overlooked_ the fact, on account of your perfectly civil behaviour, and ready supply of specie.” He is rewarded for this candour with a murderous glare from van Hoek. “But,” he adds, hurriedly, “also we had no way of, shall we say, backing up a request to leave; but now, with Minerva’s return, we do. And so, as Sultan, I’m advising you to depart, Captain.” He draws himself up to his full (not terribly impressive) height, and fixes Jack with what he phant’sies is a stern regard.

“What the hell are you on about?” demands Jack Shaftoe. “And what makes you think you’re in any position to demand such a thing? I mean, really…” He peers, unimpressed, at the little group, several of whom are fidgeting unhappily. “This is, gents, a fairly sad excuse for a Threatening.”

“Well we tend to rely on _you_ in these sorts of circumstances, Jack,” says the Sultan peevishly. “Or your boys.”

This earns him another glare from van Hoek, and an irrepressible laugh from Shaftoe. “The boys weren’t keen to come on this expedition, then?” he says, and Mr Foot blushes, and stammers that apparently they were otherwise engaged. Several of the men behind him cannot contain snorts of laughter.

“That,” cries van Hoek, purpling, “is another issue entirely. The point is, Sparrow, that I – we – will not harbour pirates, and this ship must leave.”

Jack sighs. “Alright then, if we must.”

Mr Foot and Captain van Hoek exchange glances, unable to contain their surprise; Shaftoe attempts to do the same with Jack, but Jack gazes indolently past him, staring up into the night sky.

“Please advise my company to return post haste, in the morning,” says Jack.

“I shall,” says van Hoek, still somewhat taken aback by the ease of this capitulation.

“Right then. Good night.”

“Good night, Captain.” Van Hoek gives a small, stiff bow, and is half-turned, when Jack suddenly says, “Oh, one other thing.”

“…?”

“Mr Shaftoe’ll be staying with me. And would you mind enquiring as to whether his sons would care to join the _Pearl_?”

“Now listen here!” cries van Hoek, and at the same time Jack Shaftoe shouts, “Damnation, Jack!”

Jack’s heart is hammering, but he won’t let it show. He knows that Shaftoe has a hard decision to make, but if his companions insist on upping the ante and presenting an ultimatum, well, then Jack Sparrow can do the same. He ignores van Hoek, who is launching into an impassioned tirade which veers back and forth between condemnations and accusations of piracy, slavery, thievery and buggery, and finally meets Jack Shaftoe’s eyes.

Shaftoe’s face is stone, but his eyes; oh, they are not at all. They are a maelstrom of confusion, desire, determination, a thousand things.

“I-” is all he says; and then turns to van Hoek, and says, “Otto, you cheese-headed fool, there was no need for this, no damn need at all.”

“I beg to differ,” shouts the Captain, red-faced. “D’you know what we’re saving you from, Jack?”

Mr Foot steps forward, sensing impending lack of control, playing politician; “Really, Jack, we’re sorry it’s come to this,” he says, “and it should’t’ve; Enoch assured us that everything was taken care of, but as it turned out it’s clearly not, so-”

Shaftoe stamps a foot, hard enough that the deck shakes, and holds up his pistol hand for silence, his nostrils flaring; Mr Foot is clearly familiar with the signs of imminent hyper-violence on Shaftoe’s part, and shuts his mouth instantly.

“Enoch,” Shaftoe says, his voice admirably (in Jack’s humble opinion) menacing, “told you _what_?”

“That… it was taken care of. This pirate problem.”

“And _when_ did our alchemical friend make this assertion?”

“It’s not important, Jack, come on,” blusters van Hoek, but he regrets it in an instant as Jack Shaftoe, quick as light, pricks his neck, just below the ear, with Sparrow’s sword. One of the men behind him has his sword half unsheathed, before he notices Shaftoe’s pistol pointed over van Hoek’s shoulder, and at his head; he subsides, rather rapidly.

“Don’t be silly, Vrej. Mr Foot? My query?” says Shaftoe.

“Gracious, Jack, does it matter? Yesterday evening, I suppose – do put the sword down, Jack, it’s _Otto_ , for goodness’ sake.”

“That’s true. But it seems,” says Shaftoe, rather sadly, “that I’m not the only member of our little Cabal who’s willing to sacrifice the happiness of another.”

“What on earth d’you mean? We’re merely trying to rescue you from the clutches of pirates, Jack, surely you can see that.”

At this, Shaftoe’s expression changes; slowly, the sadness gives way to amusement, and he starts to laugh. A little spark of hope flickers in Jack’s chest.

“Gentlemen,” says Jack Shaftoe, “I assure you that you’ve never in your lives seen a man in less need of emancipation. Now, get the hell off this ship.”

“But!”

“You heard him," says Jack, heart singing, and he takes his pistol from Shaftoe’s hand, levelling it at the Sultan. “Now fuck off, like good boys, and I promise we’ll be on our way in the morning.”

“Jack!” pleads Mr Foot. “This is important! Don’t be rash; think of what’s at stake!”

“Oh, I am thinking of it,” says Jack Shaftoe, “which is why I’m going. But, luckily for me, we’ve been through partings of the way before; Nyazi left with his share, we shall leave provision for Surendrenath and your good self, and Gabriel was always going to leave us in Japan; my time to leave has merely come earlier than expected. I shall take my payment in _wootz_ , gentlemen; please have it ready in the morning, and Jimmy and Danny may like to do the same.”

“You can’t leave us, Jack,” scowls van Hoek. “Enoch says-”

“I do _not_ ,” cries Shaftoe suddenly, his sword-point lifting the Captain’s chin high in the air, “give one tinker’s curse for what that man says! He tried to _kill Jack Sparrow_ , for no better reason, as far as I can ascertain, than to keep me from him; and you should know by now, gentlemen, that I don’t take kindly to being told what I may or may not do. So I wish you every luck in your endeavours, but they will be carried out without me, d’you hear?”

“But… the Enterprise,” says Mr Foot, weakly. “Eliza, Jack!”

Jack Shaftoe smiles, and shakes his head. “See that mountain, gents? I’m renaming it Sparrow Peak.”

Jack cannot hold back a rather smug grin.

“I shall allow no such thing,” says Mr Foot indignantly.

“Do as you please,” says Shaftoe; “But get off this ship. Oh, and gentlemen? Be advised, and pass the news on to Mr Root, that if any member of the _Black Pearl_ ’s crew – and this includes, most particularly, her captain – is interfered with in even the slightest of ways between now and our departure, then three Shaftoes will take you to Hell and back in recompense; and you may be quite, quite certain that there will be no Enterprise left at the end of that, for any of you that might still be quick.”

“So there,” says Jack, hopelessly aroused by Shaftoe’s fearsomeness. He narrows his eyes at van Hoek, who makes an incoherent sound of frustration and anger, and then turns and leads his little band back to the railing, muttering, “You’ll come to your senses, Jack, you’ll be back in the morning.”

“Over you go,” says Shaftoe, more cheerful now, encouraging their descent where he can with the flat of his blade. He and Jack stand and watch them descend to the boat, and push away into the dark bay. Mr Foot’s pale, moonlike face stares back at them, as they splash away into the gloom. “Oh, Jack,” he cries (rather sadly; it seems he is genuinely fond of Shaftoe), “Whatever will happen to you now?”

Shaftoe starts to laugh, and can barely control himself enough to shout back, “A prodigious butt-fucking, Mr Foot! Like something out of the Bible!”; a comment which certainly raises Jack’s eyebrows, till he hears the Sultan shouting crossly back, his voice becoming fainter, “I’ve told you, Jack Shaftoe, there is no butt-fucking in the Good Book!”

Which seems to imply some sort of Shared Joke, the detail of which Jack’s briefly curious about, until he hears the ringing clatter of a sword falling to the deck. Then he turns, and is caught fast by Jack Shaftoe’s strong arms, and pinned there by Jack Shaftoe’s hot mouth and devilishly eager tongue; he hears some faint exclamation from the departing boat, and feels a smile curve into the kiss, for the joy of knowing that they can see it and that Shaftoe knows so and doesn’t give a damn, and he takes in a great heaving breath, suddenly right back in the moment they were pulled from so unpleasantly. Right back there, and yet now it’s somehow better again; how could that _be_?

And yet, it is. Because this time Shaftoe is here with every part and intention and there is no dark and threatening tomorrow to wilfully ignore; instead there are a hundred bright coruscating tomorrows, a thousand, which can be embraced and dreamt of and filled, together, with heat and pleasure and laughter and any other damn thing they please; and the future that was taken away from Jack nineteen years ago has all been given back. All the possibilities that he then thought lost have been returned to him; not just (just!) the possibility of Jack Shaftoe in his life and arms and bed, but beyond that, the possibility of… of _love_ , that he’d closed himself away from. And that’s what makes it better than before.

It would frighten him if he let it; so he doesn’t, and instead kisses Shaftoe back with warm, humming intent, and lets Shaftoe walk him backwards to the bow, and push him down against piled cushions, and undo the _sarung_ , not breaking their kiss, until finally Shaftoe does, to say, “Damnation, I forgot where that mouth’s been”; and Jack grins and kisses him again, with all the honeyed heat he can muster, and says, “Mmmm, and ‘twill be again, you may lay on that.”

Jack Shaftoe blinks slowly, pushing stray hair off Jack’s face, and says, very deliberately, “Good.”

“Told you you’d like it,” says Jack, a little breathless, sliding his hands into Shaftoe’s (rather, his own) breeches, and sinking his fingers hard into that firmly muscled flesh. Shaftoe mutters, “You tell me I’d like a lot of things,” and then he removes Jack’s hands, and stands, and pushes the waist of the breeches slowly down… so slowly, revealing the fine line of glinting hair, the flat curve of muscle, the delicious jut of his hips.

Jack stares up at him, transfixed; and this time, Jack Shaftoe shows no inclination to hide himself away. This time, he slowly, hotly, reveals himself, and his stare holds challenge and desire but no measure of shame, and Jack’s oh, so very happy about that, but at the same time! the taunting of it! The slowness! It’ll kill him! He reaches up to Shaftoe’s golden thighs, and pulls him down on his lap, closing his eyes briefly against the calefacient touch of his flesh, and says, “Oh, you will, Jack… you'll like a lot of things.”

And then there’s no more talking, for quite some time.

 

 

 

God dammit, I really didn't want thirteen chapters. It's a horrid, unbalanced number. But you'll kill me if I leave it here, right?!   



	13. impofperversity | Trochal, Chapter Thirteen

  


Jack Shaftoe doesn’t talk, being temporarily quite incapable of such a thing; but it doesn’t matter that he can’t muster the self control to speak, because what would he say if he could? There are no words, there is not a single phrase in his expansive and colourful repertoire, that could accurately describe the state that he finds himself in right now.

Oh, every element might be familiar enough; he’s been on board a ship at night, before; he’s been alone with Jack Sparrow before; he’s been naked with Jack Sparrow before; he’s even been naked and entwined and kissing Jack Sparrow before. He’s sat astride a body before, and held its solid heavy cock in his hand, and heard sounds of desire and delight escape the mouth beneath his. He’s had cunning hands exploring him, slickly greasy hands that slide over his scarred yard with firm determination, and then slip between Jack’s spread thighs, and back; all those things, all of ‘em, but never all at once, and some of ‘em not in quite some time, and perhaps that’s what makes it so brightly, redly, dizzily overwhelming, and leaves him breathless and wordless.

Perhaps, or perhaps it’s just the indescribable presence of Jack Sparrow, who seems to be made of warmth and gold and lust more than flesh and bone; who’s clearly trembling with desire to fuck, and who pants as Jack’s hand twists and grips on his cock; whose tongue seems quite desperate to climb inside Jack, whose teeth nip viciously and deliciously, and whose spare hand and arm draw Jack close, and push up into Jack’s hair. And oh god yes whose finger pushes sure and determined against Jack, just as his tongue had done, and _oh there_ slips inside, gentle, careful, and Jack tries to concentrate on the sensation, which seems awf’ly much better than in his recollection, and perhaps that’s just because Jack Sparrow knows what it is to be on the receiving end of it; there seems more Art than Science in the touch of Jack Sparrow’s subtle hand, and Jack curves into him, spreads his legs further, relaxing himself and letting him in, because he has some vague but happy recollection of what Sparrow’s seeking and really, really wants him to –

Oh Christ there it is, as he finds it and a subtle flickering burst of pleasure is set off deep inside Jack, and he twitches and growls _again_ and again it comes; he cannot kiss Sparrow now, is too concentrated on this, but his mouth hovers, moist and close, against the pirate’s, their breath sharing and commingling, eyes flicking up to one another and away again as Jack’s overcome with it. And he remembers the devilish heat of Jack Sparrow’s body and wants it again, wants, as Sparrow said, not merely to be done to.

“Don’t move your hand, Jack, don’t,” he mutters thickly, the words catching in his throat as he rolls sideways, hooking one leg high over Jack Sparrow’s slender waist. Sparrow’s arm is snug between them, reaching back still between Jack’s thighs, and Jack bends the other man’s leg, gloriously flexible, over himself; his longer arm can reach thus, and, with a brief detour to Sparrow’s open mouth to wet and slick his fingers, he reaches down and, oh the sweetness of it, can do to Jack Sparrow just as is being done to him; can push and seek and find the spot that makes Sparrow bite his swollen lip and close his eyes and crook his finger yet again deep inside Jack, and mutter, “See Jack, see, and oh darlin’ it’ll be better again when it’s my cock inside you, trust me.”

And then, “More now, Jack, just a little more,” and the pressure and stretch are greater again, but Christ it is nothing like Eliza, nothing like; because here and now, it is not just about Jack’s arse; it’s about his cock, pushing against the base of Sparrow’s, and his legs, twining round the pirate’s body, and his hands, allowed to wander and trespass where they will, and his mouth, captured again in rum-sweet wetness, and indeed every part of him, curving into the throb and warmth and wanting that Jack Sparrow offers and evokes and _is_. And, were he a less stoic fellow, Jack could cry for having lost this in the first place, and could cry for having regained it; because it is all and utter, and he wants it, oh god he wants it, and some plaintive growl comes from him all unbidden, and it’s insisting, _ahh, please, Jack, please fuck me, no more waiting; I have to have you in me, I swear I do, come on, come on…_

Which words send shudders through the body against his, and Jack Sparrow groans against his throat, shivery and desperate, and pulls Jack with him as he rolls onto his back and then shuffles half upright against the piled pillows, their hands pulled from one another by the movement. Jack kneels across Sparrow’s thighs, and the pirate seems some strong faerie creature of dark shadowed muscle and glimpsed gold, a wild disarray of hair and gleam of eye, as he greases himself and once more Jack, and Jack Shaftoe cannot conceive of a more beautiful thing, not man nor woman nor angel neither.

“Here,” whispers Sparrow, hoarse; “here… you do it, Jack, you do it…”

And Jack does.

*

He wants, he thinks, merely to let Jack Shaftoe know that he’s no passive part of this; but Jesus, Jesus, as he watches Shaftoe’s half-feral face, and feels the delicious joy of Jack Shaftoe’s certain hand upon him, holding him there in place, he’s so overcome by it that he fears he would be barely able to take any sensible action anyway, so it’s no small relief that Shaftoe’s willing to do so. And _then oh god god god_ his cockhead is sliding against that heated body and Shaftoe’s eyes are on his, watching watching speaking volumes, and they do not look away but hold each other’s gaze for this precious first time as Shaftoe breathes sudden in and down he comes _oh god_ and holds himself, eyes wide, above Jack, who has to clench his fists against the onslaught of sensation as he’s finally, finally inside this body that’s been, oh, everything to him for so long.

And though it’s surely just a body like any other, still it’s not, it’s Jack Shaftoe’s body, and it’s hotter and fiercer and more of everything that Jack has ever wanted, and like a slow flow of molten gold Shaftoe, thighs trembling, moves down and it’s not all easy and Jack tries to say _shhh, shhh, slow, relax_ but it comes out a hissing breath and nothing more. And he tries to remain still and let Jack Shaftoe take what he will but damn it’s hard; and he has to stare up at the great bright moon for a moment to stop himself.

He digs his thumbs into the smooth flesh beside Shaftoe’s hipbones, and can feel muscle tighten under his grip as he clutches hard, more to control himself than to control Shaftoe’s movements, but oh, once he has him there, he cannot resist the littlest, littlest twisting push, cannot resist angling Jack Shaftoe above him just _so_ , and when he does, what sharp and wrenching gratification it is to feel himself press against sweet places deep inside that make odd sounds come from Shaftoe. Brave and certain Jack Shaftoe, who seems suddenly to have determined that he’s ready for more and all of Jack, and oh god Jack wants to give it to him so very very painfully much, every possible ramming inch of it, and when Shaftoe lifts himself again, till Jack’s cockhead pushes flaring at the tightest part of him, and then growls _Give it all to me Jack, as I did to you, everything_ \- oh god then they come so suddenly and utterly together, Jack pushing hard up and pulling certain down and the whole world goes warmly darker, as if his whole self is entirely enveloped in the hot velvety penetralia at the heart of Jack Shaftoe.

*

_Eeeeee! Oh oh oh Jack-my-Jack ain’t he all and everything oh there there deep inside? Don’t it feel so brightly tightly right o loveling and wholly whole you are now just like that, I feel it too! O see now, watch an’ lookit darlin’, look there at that face them blackblack eyes wide, an’ see that shine on his chest put there by your hand gold on dark. And more Jack more, o see him stare your way my love and tell me true for you must see it just as I, you must see what’s there, how he ‘dores you needs you dies for joy of fucking you my love and_

_Ahhh JackJackJack when you do that and move so ahhh d’you think I cain’t feel it d’you think it don’t run through me hot sharp bright just as it does you? So oh-my-love do’t again, go on go on ahh yes yes yes darlin’! O ain’t it ain’t it ain’t it ohhhh my JackettyJack!_

*

“Oh, Christ Almighty,” gasps Jack Sparrow, who seems to’ve been teetering on the edge of spending for hours and hours and hours and really can’t take much more, “Oh Christ oh Christ oh Christ Jack.”

And Shaftoe leans forward and kisses him with a delicious frantic intensity, and Jack holds his palm beside their joined mouths so that they can both lick it wet, then slides it down between them and wraps it round Jack Shaftoe’s so-called Remnant, which is so very hard that it’s as if all the blood he would’ve needed were he whole is still trying to fill what flesh remains; and he moves his hand in a sure and tight-gripped rhythm, his other, still on Shaftoe’s hip, encouraging the same, and he’s grateful for the strength in Shaftoe’s thighs that enables such delicious control, as Jack Shaftoe rides him, and kisses him, and leans and twists greedily to wring every possible ounce of pleasure from it; leans and twists till Jack hisses into his mouth, “I knew it, Jack, no-one has ever ever fucked me as you fuck me, as I fuck you, as we, as we, oh… _Jack_!” Their name, like confession, benediction, absolution all in one sharp sound.

Jack tries very hard not to close his eyes as the wave breaks, as he pushes up as hard as ever he can into Jack Shaftoe, tries instead to watch Shaftoe’s face as Jack comes inside him; and Shaftoe spills into Jack’s hand, blue eyes ocean-dark, eyebrows high in shattery amazement, a gasping cry escaping his flushed mouth. Everything that Jack has ever wanted.

*

_And oh my darlin shh there don’t you tremble so, fall there there on laughing panting Jack Sparrow and he’ll catch his match, ‘cause o my love, course that’s you!_

_O see? Jack Sparrow, d’ye hear me, d’ye see what we can do with you? D’ye ‘compass what it was to have my Jack here atop you and giving hisself to you? O you do do do don’t ye, I c’n feel it still in the slip of your hip, and see it in the sly shy spy of your eye and you must tell him so, you must, for din’t he say he’d stay with you? He did and will and should and shall, but o Jack Sparrow if you pain him then there ain’t no pain too dire and dread for me to give you in return and don’t you doubt it._

_What’s that, my brother? Do you doubt it, so? And what of this, the sharp grip of my needly fingerspindles eh, d’you doubt that, ha! And I shall speak and shriek to whom I please I say and you ain’t one to tell me different, no you ain’t, o heeheehee don’t tickle me so o don’t I say! Don’t and stop, or we shall fall or I shall jump and pull you with me o my brother, I will I will o stop this wicked trick and tickle else I shall - heeheehee - eeeee!_

*

“What’s that?” Jack mutters, his face still buried in Jack Sparrow’s sweaty shoulder.

“Fish,” says Sparrow. “Nothing… Jesus, Jack, you…” He trails off, and takes Jack’s face in his hands (one notably glairy, but Jack’s some way past caring) and very, very slowly kisses him, as Jack lifts up a little and makes a small noise as Sparrow’s cock leaves him; a noise that’s laughter and joy and regret and wince all at once.

“So tell me true, Jack,” says Sparrow, as Jack settles himself half upon and half beside, “is that… something you could learn to ‘preciate?”

“Maybe,” says Jack. “Over time. With a great deal of patience and practice.” But the broad grin on his face tells quite a different story, and he knows it. Still, Sparrow makes a moue, and sighs, and says, “Oh, if it’s not to your liking, so be it; I should hate to force myself upon you, Jack.”

Jack doesn’t stop smiling, and he twines his fingers in Sparrow’s, sticky with his spilled seed. “You’ve made a mess on my face,” he says, with the sole intention of getting it licked up, and Jack Sparrow complies, readily, and then kisses Jack again, all languor and lushness, and they lie twined and content for some time, hands still trembly but stroking one another warmly down into calm and peace, till Sparrow breaks the silence.

“So… so you’re staying, then? On the _Pearl_? With us? With…”

Jack is surprised at the hesitation in the other man’s voice. And then, no, not so surprised: for hadn’t Sparrow thought himself left, abandoned, for nigh two decades? And wouldn’t it be cruel of Jack, here in all his prickly-bright happiness, to leave him thinking of such things?

“With _you_ ,” says Jack, trying his very best to look serious and certain, but barely able to restrain his smiles. “With you, Jack Sparrow, is where I want to stay, an’ you’ll have me.”

Sparrow’s face is wreathed in… oh, some lovely expression that Jack doesn’t really recognise, all he knows is that it’s breathtaking; but he says, “There will be conditions, you realise.”

“Such as?”

“Well, Jack - and I’m quite firm about this: if I’m pronounced dead by anyone, anyone at _all_ , even Jimmy or Danny, even a priest, even _God_ , you must promise firstly, to view the corpse; secondly, to try your level best to revive me, with all and every means at your disposal (and there are several things you do, Jack, that I’m reasonably confident would bring me back); and thirdly, if all fails, to make very certain I’m dead, by throat-slitting or heart-gouging or, or, or head-removal, something most utterly terminal at any rate; and only _then_ may you use my expiry as a reason to leave.”

“Fair enough,” says Jack, not at all perturbed by this horridly detailed request. “And in return, you must agree that, should I take it upon myself for some mysterious reason to disappear, you’ll come after me, and follow me to the ends of the earth if necessary – for I confess to being a terrible Wanderer – to find where and why I’ve gone; but you must never let me be lost again; and you must never trust the words of another, Jack, for if it should come that I leave, I swear I’ll tell it to you straight and true.”

“Talking of leaving already!” cries Sparrow in mock dismay.

“Vagabond,” shrugs Jack, straightfaced. “But then… as long as this ship keeps moving, I daresay I’ll keep those urges in check.”

“You’ll have plenty of other urges to indulge, I assure you,” says Sparrow, with a leer, stretching his twined leg down the length of Jack’s. Oh, how Jack loves the touch of this man’s flesh! He sighs, and wriggles closer, and strokes the subtle curve of hip and waist with his broad hands, that feel so rough in comparison to that skin.

“Shall I? Tell me of it, Jack. Tell me what it’ll be, this life.”

Sparrow smiles, and closes his eyes, as if to give his imagination free reign. He murmurs, sing-song… “We’ll… we’ll sail and run before the wind, Jack, so fast none’ll ever catch us; and there’ll be days and days of sun and spray and bright air and laughter, and others of wild wind and dashing rain that’ll drive us for’ard like flight itself… we’ll go where we will, and find things that none have ever found before, and none will stand against us, not against the _Black Pearl_ and her Pirate Captain and his wild Vagabond consort! And then… then there’ll be our nights, Jack, and each night we’ll… oh, you know it, Jack, you know that all I want is to have you here to watch and touch and kiss and taste and fuck, and they shall complain, you know, the others, for the noise of it! But what else will I be able to do, with you right there, the wondrous and magnificent Half-Cocked Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds, Ali Zaybak, L’Emmerdeur?”

He opens his eyes again at the touch of Jack’s mouth, and then says, “That sounds quite disgusting by the way, that last; you must tell me of it.”

“Oh, not now,” says Jack, in a happy daze at the deliciousness of Sparrow’s story.

“Alright then, one last tale, and then we should sleep, for we’ll leave tomorrow; what’s _wootz_ , and can we spend it?”

“I fear we’ll have to trade it into something spendable first; or work it, did you not tell me that Baby Turner’s a swordsmith? ‘Tis watered steel, Jack, the very finest; I’m certain it has no like in your barbarous Caribbean.”

“Barbarous, eh? Oh, mate, you’ve no idea just how barbarous…” mutters Jack, his brief flash of curiosity easily eclipsed by other thoughts, a wicked glitter coming back into his eye. “There are rumoured to be pirates there, who’ll… oh, no, Jack, I can’t tell you, ‘tis too dreadful.”

“Tell me,” murmurs Jack, sensing impending barbarousness himself.

“These pirates… ‘tis said they kidnap handsome men,” says Jack Sparrow, eyes wide, hands extravagant, “and lure them ‘board their vessels with promises of feasts and pleasure; and then they perform barbaric acts upon ‘em till they spend, again and again, despite themselves; but those pirates, Jack, they’re quite insatiable; and just as these poor, handsome – did I explain _just_ how handsome these men are, mate? They’re really quite, oh, spectacular specimens – just as these poor, spectacularly handsome men are ready for sleep, the pirate captains begin to tease ‘em again, and if necessary will beg and plead, for now,” (Jack can tell from the slow writhe of the body ‘gainst his, from the interrupting plethora of kisses, that Sparrow’s losing the thread of his story, and lapsing into his own ardent request) “now, the pirate captain really, really wants that handsome man’s hand upon him again, just one more time, just so’s he can sleep, just so’s… mmm, yes, Jack, please, ahhh, yesss…”

“Mmm… there,” mutters Jack, indistinctly, against Sparrow’s throat; and he closes his eyes and rocks in the warm dark sweetness of it all, of the ship’s creaking timbers above and below him, of Jack Sparrow’s humming, sighing embrace, of the easy swell of his yard in Jack’s tender hand; a dream made real, life made dreamlike.

*

“Wake up, you gorgeous creature,” comes a guttural demand in his ear, and Jack swims foggily to, his eyelids already red-bright, telling him the sun is up. He doesn’t open them straight away, savouring first the rush of memory from the night just gone (oh, such a night!) till the voice says, laughter layered under query, “What’re you grinning about, eh?”

“You,” says Jack, and opens his eyes to the welcome sight of the beautifully dishevelled, delightfully dissolute Jack Sparrow, leaning down over him. He reaches up sleepy arms, wrapping them round Sparrow’s neck, pulling him down; but Sparrow will spare him no more than one brief, gentle kiss before jumping up, and looking round for his breeches.

“Have to sort things, Jack,” he explains, hopping up and down as he’s pulling them on; “they’ll all be coming back soon, and I swear, you do _not_ want AnaMaria to find her bedding like this.”

Jack groans, rubs a pungent hand across his face, and sits up; the mess that surrounds them is really rather impressive. He reaches for his _sarung_ , wraps it round. “Alright then,” he says, getting to his feet, “good luck with that; I better get going.”

“What?” scowls Sparrow, looking up just slightly too quickly, betraying some deeper concern than a fear of being left to tidy up single-handedly.

“Well, mate,” says Jack, “you’ve got to sort out one night’s worth; I’ve got to pack up a whole life, haven’t I? And be back before we sail?”

“Yes… yes, quite,” says Sparrow, quickly. “And Jack, I meant it, ‘bout your boys; they’re a welcome addition to the company, d’ye think they’ll join us?”

Jack steps over the discarded rum bottles, puts his hands on Jack Sparrow’s bare brown shoulders; “What man,” he says, “could pass up the chance to sail the seas on the _Black Pearl_ , with Captain Jack Sparrow?”

“True enough,” says Sparrow modestly, and waits patiently for those warm hands to become more certain of their embrace, and to feel the twisting smile of those lips on his own mouth in a slow, deep goodbye; but Jack Shaftoe just lets out a laugh, and slaps his captain on the arse, and disappears over the larboard rail.

“Back soon,” his voice floats up; and Jack Sparrow shakes off the shadow that passes ‘cross his mind, and lets him go.


	14. impofperversity | Trochal, Chapter Fourteen

  


_Darlings, before I start, can I just say a giant smiley "Thank You" for all the comments and encouragement? For the ~~pimping~~ recommendations and enthusiasm? You've made it such a joy to write this._

_And the biggest Thank You of all to dear clever viva_gloria whose bright imagination spawned the whole idea in the first place. Not one word of this would exist without you, sweetness, and I would have missed out on such a lot of fun!_

_Alright, I'm done, kisses all round! Here we go..._

 

 

 

Jack notices the general commotion at the water’s edge as he climbs down the side of the _Pearl_ ; from that distance, it’s just a sense of scurrying movement, small, indistinct bodies scuttling along the strand. As he rows closer, he can make more sense of it. The _Pearl_ ’s pinnaces are being loaded up with her company, half of ‘em being forced to take responsibility for the comatose remainder, under the angry direction of the shrill-voiced girl who’d taunted Jack yesterday. Clearly van Hoek has not wasted time in passing on Sparrow’s instructions. Closer still, he cranes his head round and sees van Hoek, Vrej, Mr Foot and Moseh, determined gatekeepers at the threshold of the Bomb & Grapnel, ensuring that no pirate can crawl back into its dim embrace. Jack shakes his head. What in the devil’s name has got into them?

At the side of the pale beach, some way from the action, he sees Danny, squatting in shallow water, washing his face; watching. He heads for his son; as soon as Danny notes him, he raises a hand in greeting, and wades out some way to meet him.

“You’ve done it this time,” says Danny, with a grin, as soon as he’s near enough.

“Yes, indeed I have,” agrees Jack, meaning several things, and he stows the oars and jumps out into the waist-deep water, suddenly aware of the rich smell of Sparrow and sex that’s all over him, and which, up until coming face to face with his offspring, he’d been savouring rather. “But I’m certainly not the only one.”

Danny grins, though Jack still sees the colour mount in his cheeks. They each grab a rowlock, and walk the dinghy into shore, pulling it up on the sand.

“Where’s your brother? Turner?”

Danny inclines his head up to the longhouse.

“Oh,” says Jack, a particularly odd sort of parental concern spurring him to ask, “They’re not… leaving you out, are they mate?”

Danny looks at him with something akin to horror. “No,” he squeezes out, giving Jack a look that says, quite clearly, _you are never to ask about this ever again_ ; then he adds, “Mr Gibbs over there ain’t got the gumption to go in; but he tells me they need Will back. Pity; Jimmy an’ me was thinking of keepin’ him for a bit.” He gives his father a sideways glance as he says this.

Jack just shakes his head and grins, then throws his arm round Danny’s shoulders, and says, “Come with me, then; I’ve a proposition to put to the three of you.”

At the longhouse door, they pause. Danny shouts, “Are ye ready for a visitor, gentlemen?” Jack quite clearly hears the gruff tones of his other son mutter, “Ah, feck,” but thankfully young Turner has more grace. “One moment,” he calls, and after a brief period of thumping and rustling, he opens the door, squinting and shirtless in the bright morning light.

The Shaftoe boys clearly agree with William Turner; it shows, limpid as sunlight, in the smile and flush of him, the messy halo of long dark curls, the looseness of his elegant limbs, a looseness which Jack is quite sure was not there before. Framed in the low dark of the doorway, he’s admittedly lovely, so lovely that it would pain Jack to see it, were he not the lucky man who has supplanted this glorious vision in the affections of Jack Sparrow. As it is, he’s merely pleased for his boys that they’ve found themselves such a pretty plaything, and pleased what’s more that Will Turner’s found himself a distraction from his captain.

“Morning, Mr Turner; come, talk with me while I pack, lads,” says Jack, and pushes inside.

“Pack?” says Danny, and Jimmy says, “Where’re we going?”

“Well,” says Jack, as he spreads out the tangled sheet from his bed, and begins to pile his few belongings in its centre, “ _I’m_ going aboard the _Black Pearl_ , and I’m leaving with her; and you should know, if you haven’t already gathered, that I’m doing so in order to indulge my unspeakable passion for her captain. Any questions so far?” He looks up, particularly to see how William Turner reacts to this claim; the three of them glance at one another, but certainly can’t be said to appear unduly perturbed by it. Turner looks back over to Jack, and gives him a small, apologetic smile, then drops his gaze; maybe shy; maybe embarrassed by his recall of the last couple of times the two of them have met.

“Alright then,” Jack continues, and begins to roll up his blanket. “Furthermore, said captain has invited the two of you to join his company also, should you care to.”

This time the glances are more loaded. None of ‘em says anything. “In case you’re wondering,” clarifies Jack, “I think it’s a good plan; the last thing in the world I want to do is lose you boys again. No, I’m exaggerating, that’s actually the second to last thing. But it’s pretty fucking important anyway.”

“Jaysus, of course we’ll come,” says Jimmy, and is promptly kicked by his scowling brother, who hisses, “Shut it, eejit; don’t you think that might be something Will’d like a say in?”

Both brothers turn to William Turner with faces that are attempting to say they don’t much care one way or the other, and eyes that belie it. But Will, standing between the two of them, and glancing from one to the other, smiles a wild angel’s smile; “Come,” he says, simply. “Come with us. Come with me.”

Jack smiles fondly at the expressions on his boys’ faces, and then remembers they’re in a hurry; “Excellent,” he says, and throws his bundled sheet to Danny and his blanket to Jimmy, before they start molesting the poor boy again. “Mr Turner, better go and see that all your crewmates get back to their ship, some of ‘em ain’t in the best shape. Jimmy, Danny, got anything aboard _Minerva_ that you need?”

“All our gear’s still there from the last trip,” says Danny.

“Go and get it then; Jack wants to sail as soon as possible, and it seems our erstwhile partners are equally keen. Take my effects down to the boats, will you?”

“Why, where are you going?”

“To negotiate our exit payment; besides which, I’d really like to say goodbye to Enoch,” says Jack.

*

Jack leaves ‘em to it; pauses only to strap his sword to his back with the cunning arrangement of leather that Gabriel had shewn him, long ago, which winds around his shoulders, holding his great blade flat against his spine like some tight-furled set of silver wings. Then he sets off across the grass, without looking back; it’s not hard to leave this home, not hard at all. His ‘home’ is his boys; his boys, and now, ah now! Now, it’s Jack Sparrow too, a warm breathing laughing home that he hopes never again to leave.

Others of the Cabal watch his approach from the verandah, watch the sunlight glinting off his sword, watch the rapid lope of his stride; he can’t know it, but several hearts there are sinking. It’s hard for them to imagine going on without Jack Shaftoe, without his fierce energy and bright smile and terrific sword-arm; he brings such delicious danger with him, and yet such an odd safety, when he’s on your side. Terrible things happen when Jack Shaftoe’s around, but he – they – still seem to make it through.

Perhaps… perhaps things can still change?

“Morning, gents,” says Jack Shaftoe, from the bottom of the stairs. “The boys’ve decided to come with me; as discussed, we’d like our share of the _wootz_ , thanks.”

“Are you… alright, Jack?” asks Mr Foot, rather faintly, ignoring this request and harking back to his own, more personal concerns for Jack’s welfare.

“Still walkin’,” says Jack, with a salacious grin that says they can disapprove all they like, but he won’t be shamed by what he’s done.

“Enoch wants to see you,” says van Hoek, who’s unable (or unwilling) to remove a faint sheen of disgust from his face.

“Perfect, I’m also keen to see Enoch; where is he?”

“Out back, in my office,” says Mr Foot.

“Righto; see you on my way out, don’t let me go without saying goodbye,” Jack says, and goes through into the Bomb.

Mr Foot’s “office” is a small lean-to at the back of the building, the main function of which is to house the trap-door down to the muddy cellar where he does most of his brewing. It contains a small table and several rickety stools, beneath the open shutters of a small unglazed window. Enoch is sitting on one of the stools, a notebook in front of him, but is not writing; he leans on the table, staring out the window. He doesn’t look over as Jack ducks and enters.

“Enoch,” says Jack, “I’m going, and please don’t waste thought on whether or not that’s a reversible decision, ‘cause it ain’t. But before I go, I think you owe me at the very least an explanation, and more likely a bloody sizeable apology, which I’m perfectly willing to pass on to Jack Sparrow on your behalf.”

Enoch sighs, and turns to Jack. “Jack, an explanation and an apology are two very different things. I’ve done some things, it’s true; are you more interested in exactly what I’ve done, or in why I did it? Because I shan’t apologise for acting in the interests of the greater good, and that, my friend, is what I’ve done.”

“I’d dispute that, I have to say, but first things first, Enoch, if I may summarise; ‘exactly what you’ve done’, as far as I can currently tell, includes, but is probably not limited to, conspiring to keep me ignorant of Jack Sparrow’s continued vitality; endeavouring to ensure that we never met again; and then, when we did, going all out to solve your mysterious problem by having the man done away with. Is that a fair précis?”

“Yes, Jack,” says Enoch, with a calm equanimity that makes Jack’s blood simmer.

“Well, then, my _friend_ ,” he says, through gritted teeth, “would you mind enlightening me as to why you felt this to be necessary? To be, in some incompre-fucking-hensible way, in the interests of the greater good? ‘Cause I must say, I find it a little baffling.”

Enoch stares out the window a little longer, as if considering several alternative answers to this question. Finally he spreads his hands, and says, “I’m going to try a new tack, and be nothing but honest with you-”

“Oh! What a strange and original approach!”

“But,” continues the alchemist, ignoring Jack’s interjection, “in return, I ask you to listen, and consider, and not close your mind to the idea of… of _not_ going with Captain Sparrow.”

“Alright,” says Jack; it seems a particularly harmless promise.

“Please, sit.”

Jack demurs, partly because he doesn’t trust Enoch Root right now, and partly because, frankly, it’s a little tender.

“Well, Jack, I’ve made it my business in life to know a lot of things; more things than most people realise. And one of the things I know is that the world is changing.”

“As opposed to? Of course it’s changing,” scoffs Jack.

Enoch, patient, nods. “But the pace of change increases, Jack, and ever will do; and there are certain… patterns that emerge, patterns that converge and intersect; and sometimes those intersection points cause ripples and echoes that have far greater effects, over time, than any of those who live through it are likely to understand.”

“Spare me the philosophickal treatise, Enoch, you should know it won’t get you anywhere; I’m a simple man, me.”

“My point is, Jack, that you are part of such a pattern. And I, and others who think as I do, know it. And we believe we can see the convergence coming, and though we cannot be sure of its outcome, we deem it important. And we deem your role in it important.”

“Still not with you.”

“I’m saying that you should continue with the Enterprise. I’m saying that your return is an important element in the patterns developing in the world… I’m saying that I have tried to protect your path through the pattern, and Jack Sparrow is one of the things I’ve tried to protect you from.”

Jack’s mouth falls open and he would laugh, but it’s too ridiculous. Eventually he manages, “Enoch, this is the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard. What in God’s name… why did you want so much to be rid of him? What’s he done to you?”

“Nothing, he’s done nothing to me. But I… Jack, your Captain Sparrow is exactly the type of interruption to the pattern that I have been trying to avoid.” Enoch closes his eyes and looks out the window again. It was an interesting experiment, Honesty, but it’s perfectly clear that it’s not going to be a successful one. He tries a different tack. “What about Eliza?”

“I’ve discharged my promises to Eliza,” says Jack, and the coolness in his voice tells Enoch that that name is no longer the key to Jack Shaftoe’s heart. “She’s never wanted me. She’s had plenty of opportunities to show me otherwise. This, Enoch,” and Jack motions to the long scar across his chest, “this is Eliza’s message to me. I’d have to be pretty fucking stupid not to be able to read that one.”

“The Enterprise cannot succeed without you,” says Enoch suddenly.

And this, more than any metaphorickal nonsense or invocations of Eliza, is what silences Jack. The thought of abandoning his friends, his brothers, is cold and wrong. Moseh, who kept him alive on that damned galley! Clever Dappa, with his plans, whispering in Queen Kottakal’s ear on Jack’s behalf! Even the frequently disagreeable van Hoek; they have been through so very much together. They have fought together, and conspired together, and planned together, and pledged their loyalty to one another; a random group of men forgotten and forsaken by the world, who’ve formed their own alliance, who are forging their own future.

Those men are where Jack owes allegiance; not to some far off Duchess whom he once loved, not to some philosopher’s notion of pattern and fate.

Enoch watches Jack Shaftoe closely, and says, quietly, “Go and tell _them_ what you want to do, Jack.”

Jack looks up swiftly, and there’s a light back in his eyes. There is a way of earning his release, clean and clear; of being able to go, with no guilt or regret to hold him down and gnaw at him. “Aye,” he says, “Aye, I’ll talk to ‘em, Enoch. And _they_ can be the judge of whether I should go, or nay. And then I expect to go with your blessing, and to know that you won’t be conspiring against me for years to come, trying to reinsert me into your bloody pattern. Does that sound fair?”

“Fair,” says Enoch; though not before a moment’s pause.

Jack nods shortly, and goes back into the main room of the tavern. His friends have come inside, and are sitting by the front window – mostly, he suspects, for the purposes of eavesdropping.

“So, gentlemen,” says Jack, and they turn to him with carefully blank faces; he pulls up a stool, a tall stool, and perches upon it (a little gingerly), clearly ready to Story-Tell. “You’re now officially my Judge and Jury. It’s true, I’ve every desire to leave these shores, and this Enterprise; but it’s also true that you are my brothers-in-arms, and I’ve made promises to you. So hear this, gentlemen; I’ll put my case to you, and then you may decide whether or not I can leave.”

The men exchange glances. “I’ll get Dappa, shall I?” says Mr Foot. “Surendrenath?”

“Surendrenath, Padraig, Gabriel, grab ‘em all,” says Jack. “And drinks are on me.”

*

Everything is more-or-less shipshape by the time Jack’s company returns to the _Pearl_ ; but then quickly isn’t again, as the deck becomes littered with half-drunk pirates and their irate companions, and it takes all Jack’s charm and patience to cajole them into preparations for sailing. Luckily he has the aid of a particularly cheerful and energised William Turner, who’s bounding around like an over-excited gun-dog, all smiles and encouragement and enthusiasm; a state by which Jack is briefly bemused, and then _a_ mused, as he’s informed in a shy aside that he’s expecting two new crewmembers.

“Excellent,” says Jack, and the two of them exchange complicit grins, and Jack’s relieved to find that it’s all, apparently, going to be just fine between the two of ‘em. “Where are they, then?”

Will scans the bay, and points to a small boat, halfway to the Minerva; “Gathering their belongings, then going to say their farewells, then they’ll be here; shouldn’t be long.”

“And… the other Shaftoe?”

“Wanted to go and see that Root fellow; in the tavern, I think.”

Jack grits his teeth, and scowls, and advises himself that he must remain calm and trusting. But feels neither. He brings up his glass, and peers over at the Bomb & Grapnel; the verandah is empty. No, wait – out comes Foot, and scuttles next door, and to the hovel after that, and soon returns with a number of other men. The door shuts, determinedly, behind them.

It opens again, briefly, some time later, to admit Jimmy and Danny on their return from the Minerva; and then remains resolutely shut, while out on the _Black Pearl_ , Jack Sparrow frets irritably, and suffers the complaints of his crew, ready now to get underway as ordered, and yet suddenly forbidden.

*

The table is littered with empty and half-empty bottles, and mugs; Jack Shaftoe’s narrative has now reached something close to the present day. This has taken some time; Jack’s insisted on regaling them with his entire history, much of which they’ve already heard, and they’ve had no compunction about telling him so; but parts of which are very new to ‘em. Parts of which have brought a flush to their faces, but this time, Jack’s leaving nothing out. Nothing at all. They know the lot.

“So imagine it,” he says, and pauses for a quiet moment to allow them to do just that; “there I was, asleep _right there_ " - he points through the window, and heads follow his finger – "and was woken with the touch of a knife to my throat. And there he stood, my friends; large as life, twice as real; the man I’d loved, and thought dead for twenty years. And he was set on killing me, for he thought I’d deceived him – thought it had all been some act to free my mates from that island – he’d no idea of his First Mate’s trickery. Thought I’d just up and left!”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” mutters Jimmy, still smarting at this deal that his father’s made on their behalf, and itching to leave.

Jack refuses to be put off course, and continues his tale; tells those who’d been absent of the pirates’ visit, and of William Turner’s sweet affection for his captain; Mr Foot, swollen with his own importance as a Witness, is called upon for corroboration. Jack tells them, further (though not in _too_ much detail) of his midnight swim to the ship; of his flight to the mountains. Lets them laugh at his consternation over his Credential, always a great source of amusement among the Cabal.

“He knows of it now, though?” says Dappa, frowning.

“Oh yes,” says Jack. “Enoch told him. Oh, and Mr Foot, I believe, confirmed it.”

There are glances at the back room. “I didn’t know it to be a secret, Jack,” says Mr Foot, guiltily querulous. Jack pats him on the shoulder.

“I know you didn’t, my friend. Enoch, on the other hand, was far more cunning with his revelation.”

“What d’you mean, Jack?”

“Wait, wait, I’m coming to that… anyway, Jack Sparrow followed me up into the hills…” And there follows a detailed account of their reunion, and an amusingly graphic story of the ring on his chest that causes no small amount of squirming, and refilling of tankards. But things become less amusing as Jack tells of their return, and the poison dart; his anger is plain for all to see.

“But as you know, gentlemen, I’ve experience in these matters, and Captain Sparrow survived the attempt; made it back to his ship (though, ooh, I should mention an interesting discovery that we made en route, of my dear boys and some entertainment they’d found themselves in the meantime)” – laughter from some, and grins from the boys – “and anyway, to cut a long story short, that night we two were finally about to… renew our acquaintance… when some of my dear friends showed up with an ultimatum. Otto, p’rhaps you’d like to take the floor, and explain what that was about, for I’m sure I’ve no idea.”

Everyone turns to Otto. “He’s a pirate, Jack,” he insists, quite unmollified. “Enoch said he had some hold over you; that you were not your own man where he was concerned. And I’m still in agreement with that, after all you’ve said. The man has to go. We’ve only your interests at heart.”

“Pshaw,” says Jack. “Do you all believe that Enoch had my interests at heart, when he spent years _not telling me_ that the man he knew I’d loved was still quick? When he kept track of Jack Sparrow’s actions and whereabouts, and sent him off on wild goose chases whenever he thought the man might venture to the same hemisphere as myself? When he demanded that he leave the East Indies? When he told him, cold and cruel, of my Incapacity? When he tried to have him killed? Do you really believe that Enoch loves me so, that he can’t bear to be parted from me?”

Jack leans down, and drops his voice. “No, gentlemen, it’s not a question of love. Though there is much love in this story. It’s a question of a man who believes he has some right to play with other men’s fate, as though we’re toys in some great game of soldiers. It’s a question of being left alone to follow your own path, and choose your own happiness. And though you, my dear friends, you and our Enterprise, have been that happiness for me for many years… the time has come that I’ve found it, found it in quite glorious excess, elsewhere. Found it, unlikely though it may seem, in the company of a Pirate Captain.

“I lost it, once, gents, and it nearly killed me. And now it means everything to me. But I’m a man of loyalty, if not strictly a man of honour; and I shan’t leave without your blessing. I ask you for it now. So tell me; will you make me stay and discharge my obligations, to yourselves, and to Enoch’s mysterious Plan? Or can I go and claim the love that’s been kept from me for twenty years?”

There is a heavy silence.

“You got over it, before,” says van Hoek, suddenly. “It’s an aberration, Jack, it won’t last. For your own good, I say you must stay.”

“Well said,” says Vrej.

Jack swallows, but says nothing.

Mr Foot has gone very, very red. He appears to be on the verge of combustion. “Otto van Hoek!” he cries, suddenly, “that is the most wicked thing I have ever heard! Of course you must go, Jack! Whatever strange sickness it is that’s gripped you, though I can’t say I understand it myself – still, it makes you happy, and you, Jack Shaftoe, deserve that. Go, I say, with my blessing!”

“And mine,” says Moseh, dark eyes calm; Gabriel just nods; “Shite, yes, ye mad bastard!” declares Padraig.

The Wazir does a head count, and nods. “Go, Jack. I don’t know what will happen without you; but no man has the right to hold another back from his fated path in life, and I think this… pirate… is your fate, one way or another.”

A bright wash of relief is sparkling through Jack, bringing on an urge to smile, to laugh, to run. “Alright, then,” he says, and climbs off his stool. “I thank you, my friends, and I wish you every good fortune in your endeavours. Say goodbye to Enoch for me. Come on, boys.”

He would have gone, anyway, and he knows it; but it’s much better to go like this, clean and sharp, no regrets, no lingering half-dead promises. Eliza followed him round in his guilty head for too many years; the Cabal shall do no such thing. Now, Jack Sparrow can have him in total, body and mind.

Heart and soul.

*

“Jack!” comes Will’s cry, echoing down below, and Jack tries not to run, tries to look at least composed, if he can’t manage nonchalant, as he makes his way above decks.

And there are three blonde heads, and one dark, in the gig that’s pushing out from the beach; and Jack’s smile feels fierce and powerful as the sun, as his heart swells heavy in his chest, as his blood seems to find a whole new purpose for its rushing journey round his tingling body, as the world comes bolder, brighter, sweeter, with every onrushing sweep of the gig’s oars, with every lessening inch in the distance between Jack Shaftoe and himself.

*

_Dark ain’t it down here o my brother and blackly thick, ain’t no man would see us here, heehee ain’t no man would see you and I and thee and me anyhow and way, ‘cept my sweetling Jack some funny quick times. No you thieving liar and lying thief your one has not never seen me, nor you neither, don’t you claim it! And where d’you take me, eh? What is it that you want me to see? There ain’t nothing here I ain’t seen sweet and clean, ain’t nothing here on your dear grubby ole’ boat oww owowowow don’t do that so, I take it back, pax pax pax your wondrous shipling, your wonderglory Pearl!_

_Where you going? They ain’t in there, this here’s – oh!_

_Heehee! O shhh and hissy kissy quiet now, they’ll hear!_

_Ohhh… see there how Baby Turner smiles and don’t he wriggle so slow and gold, and see him shine with sweat and kiss-places and leaking wanting! All those big warm Shaftoe hands ‘pon him on him in him! Shhh, speaking, listenlistenlisten o my brother!_

“Who will teach me to use those great Japanese swords of yours, Jimmy? Danny?”

“Jesus and Mary, Will, d’you ever stop thinking of swordplay, how can you think of it, right now… will you stop thinking of it, if I do… this?”

“You don’t seem to object to – mmm – other types of play that occupy my mind.”

“I’ll teach ye, I’m better’n him anyway.”

“Bollocks y’are!”

“Gentlemen! You’re both such rare talents; I should appreciate instruction from both of you… I appreciate all things from… ahhh, there… from both of you, oh Lord how I ‘preciate it… ‘gain, Danny, do that again…”

“We’ve only two swords.”

“I shall mmm… make another. And I shall take that nick from your blade, too, Jimmy. It must be perfect… perfect for you… as you are perfect, there, see, feel how… very… perfect you are?”

“Ah god, your hands… oh, ’tis you that’s perfect, William Turner.”

“Aye, you.”

“At last… I’ve achieved the impossible, I’ve brokered agreement between the Shaftoe boys.”

“Ah, not so hard… here’s something else we agree on…”

“…”

_What’s he say, my love? Listen for he whispers mutters groans so low!_

“Oh, god, yes… oh, both, both, both tonight… here, Jimmy, come here, Danny first… there, oh Danny oh, shhh oh! Watch me Jimmy, watch, think of it, oh God kiss me, please come here, p… p… please…”

“O… please…”

_Tell me so, was he thus with your one, your Jack, did he have no shame this way or is this special for my boys? Hah, I knew it so! See him tremble leafly there and yet so strong, dear Danny deeply deep and blinded by’t, dear Jimmy with his sweet hot mouth telling love and wanting, ohhh…_

_Darling, lovely o my brother, and d’you by chance or maybe mayhap have another brother ‘board this tub, for we could owowow! Ship ship shipley ship! Shhhhh it! Oh they look up now and hear you, go, ‘way with us, shhh outoutout!_

_Oh yes I like to see them hear them wriggly warm ain’t they pretty? So pretty! But t’ain’t the same for shame, ain’t the same as when I watch my one and your one and feel it so through and through so come you now, o come my brother, here and here and in the creaking dark! Come ‘long this way to your one’s place and space and let us find them, my Jack your Jack our Jacks, and feel it all as they do, o yes! Here, shh, here my friend! Here they lie and here we spy! Heehee!_

_O there’s my Jack there on the cot and he is bared already, ain’t he fine? Ain’t he such a one, them long limbs, glinty with the lampflame, and see it flicker there in his eyes, oh my special darling! See his hand, his fingers there on his chest, he touches that fleshwarm gold and do you feel there the shiver it sends to and through him? See the way he smiles up at your one, standing there, watching watching lip-licking not yet touching?_

_And alright I say it now and say it true, your one too is a fine shining thing oh yes he is; I sees him with my JackJack’s eyes and they ain’t never seen such lovely bones, such a mouth, they love and love the darkling glimmer of him and look! Look as he takes off shakes off all them pretty raggedy clothes and can you feel as I the jump in my one’s heart to see’t?_

_Ohhh and more, so much more ‘gain when he climbs over onto my darlin’, leans down upon him, warm hair tickles first, then warm lips so sure, so sure and pure! Shh, your one speaks…_

“So, there ain’t no escaping me now, Jack Shaftoe.”

“I’m not trying very hard.”

“And I shan’t give you reason to, I swear it.”

“You never did. _I_ never did. Stop thinking that I left you, Jack. I never left you. What sort of lunatick would ever leave such a man, such a face, such a mouth, oh yes such hands, such a body, Jesus, look at you… I can’t believe I get to look at you this way, that you…”

“That I what? That I feel it and see it in you also? That when I look upon you I’m almost sick with the need to put my hands upon you, thus, and my mouth, and can think of almost nothing but what it will be to push my cock inside you and watch your face as I do’t? Well, believe it, my friend. My… love.”

_Eeee feel the heartswell ain’t it flame and honey and dance and I cain’t but caper nor you neither!_

“Christ, I want it too, Jack, I do, I… _ohhhh_ …. no, wait, I want to ask you something; d’you remember…”

“Oh, everything, Jack, I remember everything.”

“… a piece of paper, that you wrote upon? On Turk’s Island, that last day?”

“You _did_ take it!”

“Aye.”

“And did you… read it?”

“You know I -”

“Yes, but did anyone -”

“No; but Jack, I thought I saw my name upon it… tell me, now, what did it say?”

_D’you know, o my brother? Did you see his squirly words? Do you ‘member?_

“You don’t have it, any longer?”

“No, I…. no, what did it say?”

“’Twas a question; but an old question, and a foolish one, for I know the answer now, and I should have known it then.”

“And will you tell me this foolish question and its obvious answer? I'd no great desire to know, when I thought you dead, but now I'm... curious... ohh, almost as curious as I am to find out whether my memory of last night is real or a dream, whether it truly, truly can feel that exceptionally good to be fucked by Jack Sparrow… by you, Jack… by you… my love.”

“Ah, Jack… my Jack… I’ll show you the answer, I’ll show you now, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…”

_Ahhh the satinslide skin on skin and mouth on mouth and all the lusty bloodrush fierce and good!_

“I, Jesus Christ, Jack, I like the answer, whatever the fucking question was.”

_Does he love you, Jack Shaftoe? And you him? And din’t I know it trow it brightly so!_

_Come my brother no no we shan’t stay. ‘Tis for them, this, not for thee and me, we must find our own sweet pleasure. Morrow, eh? Come back on the morrow? So bye my lovely loves and pretty darlings with your happy groaning sighs and cries, and ‘joy it, lovelings, ‘joy it for ‘tis yours now._

_And my darlings ever will be._   



End file.
